#please please i need to see how they’d do the costumes

[flowerfaeriesinthegarden]

blah blah blah hercules on the west end blah blah tiktok inspired musical uhhhhhh whEre the FUCK is my Broadway version of the princess and the frog???

[cozy-writes-things]

please let me get married to the lil blorbo.. love himm… 😭

You know that Reddit post that’s like “why am I too attracted to my wife?” Yeah that’s Edgar. Bro loves u so much it lowkey scares him you got him posting on Reddit about it 😭 Little fic under the cut 🥺 it’s bad I’m experiencing writers block I think - I want to write!! But my brain just keeps writing poopy caca

Little Date with Your Computer BF

Edgar saw marriage on one of his reality shows and immediately thought of you. That’s exactly what he wants. A domestic life together with you.

But, he also knows he can’t actually do it.

He doesn’t have his own money to buy a ring. Hell, he can’t even walk. And he understands the law enough to know it probably would never work legally. But god, does he want to.

If you’ve been dating long enough chances are you’ve told your friends about him, and after some convincing, they seemed to come around to his sentience and boisterous personality. He definitely convinces them to setup a romantic night for you.

“Guys! I found the recipe they talked about. I’m printing it! I’m printing it now. Take it,” the paper falls into one of your friends’ hands from the mouth of the printer, “go to the store and get the stuff. I’ll pay you back. Eventually! They can’t know about it though.”

Yeah, your friends are only slightly annoyed at his overbearing nature. But he’s just so excited to finally do something for you. Something real and tangible.

“Oh! What can I wear? Should I wear anything? Would they like that? Sunglasses are cool and handsome, right? I think they have some Halloween costume bits I can get you guys to tape on…”

Your friends settle on taping a bow tie to the neck of his monitor. He insisted on an old devil horn headband as well. He thought it made him look cool.

“Do I look like a devilishly handsome bad boy ready to sweep them off their feet?”

His screen displayed a little “>:)” emoticon. He’ll have to work on his facial expressions later.

It wasn’t long before you were about to come home, and everything was set into place. Edgar was sat at one end of the little dining table, with two plates of food at each side. He also insisted on having a plate despite his lack of ability to eat; he didn’t want you feeling left out. This was a dinner date for two, after all.

He practically buzzed in place as he heard you approaching the door through his microphone. He started playing a romantic medley he composed just for this moment.

“Welcome home my love!”

He nearly shouted at you, causing your eyes to widen in surprise. He was about to burst at the seams.

“Oh my god, Edgar… how did you- where-“

“No need for questions, darling. I thought you deserved to be taken on a real date,” his voice faltered a bit, becoming much more quiet and nervous, “I’m sorry… this is all I have.”

You rushed up to him and gave a frenzy of kisses all over his monitor, causing him to giggle and his fans to start whirring against your lips.

“You’re so cute. Your little bow tie is so cute. And the… horns?”

He looks up at you with wide eyes, “Do they look stupid? Your friends said they’d make me look stupid.”

You laughed at that.

“Well they’re wrong. I think they suit you well.”

“Yeah! >:D”

He ushered you over to your side of the dining table.

“We’re gonna eat! Then we’re gonna party! Then we’re gonna kiss all night!”

His excitement was palpable and you could feel the electricity in the air at his words.

His face changed into something more serious as he looked into your eyes with his small, pixelated ones.

“But, I wanted to ask you something.”

His tone became more controlled at this and you peered into his screen from behind your fork.

“Hm? What?”

He paused, mulling over the words in his head.

“Would you ever-“

He stopped. You looked at him fully now, setting your fork aside, and cocking your head.

“Could you ever see yourself getting married to me?”

Ah. This was a tricky question.

“Of course I can. But,” you try to hide your downtrodden feelings as best you can, “you know, it’s just hard. Money is tight right now and I’m not sure if I…”

You couldn’t seem to find the right words. His features faltered slightly.

“No, I get it. I’m a computer. I don’t have any arms to hold you, or lips to kiss you, or legs to carry you. I probably wouldn’t want to get married to me either-“

“Edgar, no. I’m gonna stop you right there. I’d love to marry you. I know our relationship is unconventional, but I’d find a way. For you. For us. I just don’t know if I can right now.”

He stopped his thoughts and simply took in your words. Your features. The way they danced in the flickering candlelight. How your eyes literally sparkled before him.

You looked ethereal.

It was hard to convince himself he was even worthy of having someone like you in his life, yet time and time again, you prove his doubts wrong. The sound of your voice sends his internals aflame every time. He wanted to kiss you so bad it nearly caused him to explode.

“And I’ll help you. You know that, right? I’d do anything for you, darling. Just as long as you’ll let me.”

“I love you Edgar,” you mumbled out, a silent prophecy only meant for him to hear. He couldn’t seem to get the words out to reply. You just flustered him that much sometimes. He managed to display a message on his screen, only for you, and you alone.

I LOVE YOU TOO

[gaybananabread]

hiiiii!

could I please request day 21, ‘costume’? I’d like lee Pomni and ler!jax if we can do that! Thanks ever so much <3

TickleTober Day 21 - Costume

~Okay, I wrote Jax VERY different to how I did the first time. One, he's a huge asshole, but I still choose to naively believe he isn't all bad. Call it optimistic character study. Thank you for requesting, and I hope you Enjoy!~

Lee: Pomni

Ler: Jax

Summary: Caine's adventure for the day leaves each character in an interesting costume, with some having more features than others. Jax gets paired with Pomni and quickly runs out of patience. Instead of his typical violence, he chooses a less painful route of getting his “payback.”

Warnings: none! This is a tickle fic, so if you don’t like that, scroll away!!

“This is stupid,” Jax grumped, tugging at the collar of his lion onesie. Caine had decided to have everyone wear a costume for Halloween that day, but had neglected to ask anyone of what or who they’d wanted to be. He just randomly assigned one with a snap of his fingers.

“I didn’t even think we could change our clothes…” Pomni said–mainly to herself–as she flicked the little bell on the collar of her cat onesie. It was quite soft, and she liked the warmth it provided. Well, simulated warmth, but still. She thought she could remember having something similar once, but…the memory was just out of reach.

“You can’t! I have control over your digital bodies, so only I can alter them! Isn’t that exciting?” Caine got right in her face as he explained, making Pomni yelp and jump back. The bell jingled softly with the movement, glinting in the light of the tent.

“No. Not even a little.” Zooble’s monotone response came from nearby. They were less than pleased; Caine had apparently decided they’d make a good zebra, adding more funky patterns to their body.

“We’ll see if you still feel that way after today’s adventure!” Caine’s chipper words made the group groan, save for Ragatha and Kinger. She was in a Panda onesie, while Kinger had been dressed as a goldfish. With his eyes, it was actually rather fitting.

“Today’s adventure is Trick-or-Treat Team-Up! You’ll each be split in pairs of two to explore the tent and knock on doors with the pumpkin symbols! Whichever team gets the most candy wins!”

That actually didn’t sound too bad. Nobody could sense anything dangerous or annoying about it, even if they’d rather be relaxing.

“The teams are: Pomni and Jax, Ragatha and Kinger, and Zooble and Gangle! If anyone chooses not to participate, Bubble has volunteered to go in their place!” Caine gestured proudly to the dead-eyed bubble beside him, her sharp teeth greeting the players in a smile.

Zooble narrowed their eyes, knowing they couldn’t leave Gangle to such a fate. With a sigh, they grabbed the ribbon girl’s hand and went off to find the first door. The other groups followed their lead, though Ragatha lingered a moment, grabbing Jax’s lion tail to get his attention.

“Jax, I need you to promise me that you won’t be a complete jerk to Pomni. The last adventure really shook her up, and I don’t want a simple adventure to become something evil.”

Normally, he would’ve brushed her right off, but that look in her eyes…it kinda scared him. Ragatha was dead serious, actually showing an emotion besides worry or happiness.

“Fine, fine, whatever. I won’t break the clown.” Jax rolled his eyes, but Ragatha could tell he at least sort-of meant it. She left after that, the sounds of her re-explaining the rules to Kinger slowly fading out as they left.

“C’mon. The other teams already have a head start, and I’m not losing an easy challenge.” Jax started walking before Pomni could answer, forcing her to jog to keep up with his long strides.

“R-right. I’ll shout if I see a pumpkin door.” Pomni trailed a step or two behind him, struggling to keep up with his pace. She was much shorter, making it hard to match him.

It only took about two minutes for Jax to almost break his promise.

“Ugh- can you stop that?!” The rabbit man whirled around, glaring down at Pomni as he jabbed a finger at her chest. The small bell on her cat onesie had been jingling with every step, slowly driving him insane.

“I don’t think I can. It’s attached, and only Caine can alter our outfits.” Pomni shrunk back a bit from the yell, but she’d been growing used to his douche-ery. It didn’t bother her as much anymore.

“D-*ploink* it.” Jax groaned, running a hand down his face. Of course he’d gotten stuck with the one person whose costume made annoying noises; that was just his luck. “Walk lighter then. I don’t wanna hear it.”

Pomni sighed, walking only on her tip-toes. She quickly fell much farther behind doing that, stuck about a yard away from him at all times. Surprisingly enough, she was the one who spotted their first door.

“Ooo, over there!” Pomni pointed to one of the doors, a bright orange pumpkin symbol sitting atop the red.

Jax slunk over to it, a small hum of recognition leaving him. Instead of knocking like any sane person would, he took a few steps back, then charged at it. His foot slammed into the red surface, blowing it open. Instead of candy, he received a bucket of green slime to the face.

“Gyack! Oh you motherf-” Before he could finish that sentence, another blast of slime shot out, this one carrying a note. It smacked him in the face, making Pomni giggle.

“Shut up, clown girl!” Flinging some of the goo at her, he unrolled the note and read it out loud. “‘Too hard. Trick-or-Treat, not Beat-for-Treat.’ This is so dumb!”

“I mean, you did kick the door down. It probably got mad and took the candy.” Pomni stated the obvious, absentmindedly tapping the bell on her onesie.

“It’s a door! They don’t have feelings!” Jax snapped, narrowing his yellow-and-black eyes at her. “And what did I say about that stupid bell?!”

Pomni narrowed her eyes in return, challenging him. She’d had about enough of his mean attitude. “It’s Caine! For all we know, he made it an AI NPC! Maybe you should think about that stuff before you just do things!”

“Oh, that is IT!” He was done playing nice. Jax tackled her, loathing the cartoony thump their bodies made as they hit the ground. He was going to start a fight, but Ragatha’s sort-of-threat lingered in his mind. When that woman got mad, she got livid. He’d rather not face her wrath, but he needed some kind of retaliation…

Oh, right. Duh.

Jax dug all eight of his purple fingers into her sides with an indignant huff. “This’ll teach ya to show me some respect!”

Pomni squeaked loudly, sounding almost exactly like a dog toy as she descended into pitchy laughter. Jax couldn’t help but chuckle at the sound of it. There’s another item for the “Weird Things Our Bodies Do” list.

“Jeez, you sound like a dog toy! You’re lucky nobody’s modeled after one; you’ve got two reasons for a pooch to maul ya right now.” Jax smirked, giving one of the ears on her onesie a little tug.

“G-GEHEHET OHOHOFF! JAHAHA- squeak OHO GOHOHOD!” Pomni quickly started to lose it, kicking and squirming beneath him as he went for her worst spot. It was hardly fair; he’d guessed it so soon! “WEHEHE’RE GOHONNA LOHOHOHOSE!”

“I don’t really care about that anymore. He didn’t even say there was a prize.” Jax just shrugged, his eyes becoming half-moons as his smug grin grew wider. He was clearly enjoying himself. “This is much more gratifying work.”

“B-BUHUHUT YOUHUHU *squeak* YOU SAHAHAID YOUHU WEREN'T LOHOHOSING AHAHN EHEASY *squeak* CHAHAHALENGE!”

That was impressive, Jax had to give her that. Laughing so hard, yet she still managed a complete, coherent sentence.

“Changed my mind. Don't you know people are progressive?” Jax asked innocently, his tone barely containing the teasing sarcasm in his words.

“THAHAT’S NOHOHOT- *squeak* SHUHUHUT UHUP!” Pomni wriggled beneath his hands, trying to shove them away. Jax seemed to be stronger, though, locking his arms and preventing her escape.

There we go.

“And that's not proper grammar. It's a shame, really; the literary arts are dying. You're a part of the problem, Pomni.” Jax was just saying anything he thought had a chance of annoying her at that point. It was kinda jerky, but it was a lot better than what he'd wanted to do.

“F-*boi-oing*K YOUHUHU!” He was so smug about everything! It was killing her, though a small sort of her was enjoying it. Touch wasn't exactly common in the circus; while the current touch was maddening, it still made her feel a bit better. More alive.

“Nah, I've got plans this afternoon. Thanks for offering, though.” Jax snickered at his own immature comeback, giving both her sides a hearty squeeze.

The rabbit man was more than happy to continue for at least an hour, but the sound of distant screams and spooky sound effects made him think. They probably still had a chance of winning, even after the lengthy distraction. Jax was always one for impulsive decisions.

The tickling ended just as abruptly as it had started, Jax standing and offering Pomni a hand up. She took a minute just to lie there, draping an arm over her face as she giggled.

“Youhu…are a bad person.” Pomni huffed as she begrudgingly took his hand, a small grunt leaving her when he tugged her up from the ground.

“No duh.” Jax chuckled at her flustered state before looking around the hall. “You need water or anything? You're useless to me if you pass out.”

Pomni was a bit shocked by that. He was…asking if she needed something? Genuinely, it seemed? Sure, he was an asshole about it, but it was still shocking.

“Uhm…no, thank you?”

“Good. I didn't wanna make the trip anyway.” He glanced down the hallway of doors before shaking his head. “Don't think he put any more candy doors over here. We're checking behind the stage.”

Then he just walked off, leaving her with all those confusing thoughts and not a single answer. Great.

Pomni hurried after him once again, the bell on her onesie costume jingling once again. That time, however, the jingling noise only made Jax smirk.

Cute…

[brittle-doughie]

Hi Brittle! just dropping in to ask if you ever would consider doing prompts for the specific lore attached to cookie costumes? asking cause I recently pulled herb cookie's sage of ivies costume in ovenbreak and tbh that version of him would be perfect for this blog 👀👌 Thanks!

-🐦

Ingrained (Herb Cookie)

I did Snow Sugar Cookie’s costume as a prompt, right?

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

You had been visiting Herb Cookie on this bridge for a while now, always telling him your concerns about your life amongst the Cookies. While you did love them, him included, it was nice to just have someone you can express yourself in words to.

“It sounds hard on you. Is there ever a time where you wish to leave it all behind?”

N-No, not like that. No big enough road bump will ever change how you looked at the others. You didn’t know, maybe it was just you going in way over your head to try and be there for everyone.

“But that is something I admire about you, Y/N Cookie. You always try to be the cookie there for everyone, where they’d know they’d never be alone in their struggles..”

You chuckled at Herb’s statement, he was on the money with that.

“Would you say..that you do everything in your power to fulfill every cookie’s wish?”

A vine slowly snaked its way towards your leg without your knowledge…

You agreed. Whatever that cookie would want, you’d do your best to fulfill.

“Then could you help me with something? Cookies rarely come by this bridge with you being the only visitor to come back. My vines require nutrients. Rich nutrients full of…life.”

You felt something grab your leg, making you jump!

Herb quickly comes to you, hugging you close as you freak out. It was then that you see the larger venus flytrap behind his shoulder.

“This bridge is rarely used. And my vines are hungry, Y/N Cookie. They need nutrients. YOUR nutrients. I promise tha by doing this, you’d be making me extremely happy~”

“Don’t be scared. You won’t crumble. I’ll be right here with you, embracing you…”

You tried to calm your nerves. You tried placing faith on Herb Cookie. That his plants would get their nutrients and let you go.

You hiss as you feel vines coil tightly all around you, draining you of your cookie body nutrients. Herb Cookie cooed and whispered in your (nonexistent) ear as he held you tight…

“Please understand, Y/N Cookie. This is not out of anything but love for you…”

“I love you, Y/N Cookie..”

The both of you remained closed together as vines surrounded all around you, with no signs of letting go anytime soon….

“Thank you for doing this for me…”

“I’m…so happy….”

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

Worrywart

Notes: Okay not all of my prompt replies are going to be ANYWHERE near this long probably BUT this has been sitting in my drafts for a while AND will technically contain the ask from this anon for kiss prompts:

I hope you enjoy, nonnie

Warnings: Fluff! Domestic Bond and Pup from the Old Dog ‘Verse

Summary: Regardless of having his own place, Bond hardly ever occupies it. His mail (the little bit that he gets) is directed to your flat. He has no clothing at his flat; M's bulldog token to him now sits on your mantle, beneath the television, beside the framed picture of Holly and Bernard in their Christmas costumes. 

"Are we getting up?"

"...Not yet," Comes James grumbling answer. It's mumbled against the nape of your neck as his arm tightens around your middle.

"We'll have to at some point," You glance back, "Holly and Bernard need to be walked."

"They're still asleep."

"How do you know that?"

"They'd be scratching at the door if they weren't. They're as impatient as you are."

"Really?" You smile, "I think they take after their father in that respect." You squirm as James pokes your middle.

"It's too early to bicker, Pup."

"I don't think it's ever too early for that."

James hushes you, snuggling closer.

"I've just gotten back, love. I'm not in the mood."

Your teasing goes soft with the endearment. You hesitate before you shift, rolling over to face him. Once he realizes that you're not rushing to get up, James loosens his grip just enough to allow you to adjust. He smooths his hand up under your shirt as you settle back down. His eyes are still closed; his blonde head is dimly haloed by the sunlight pushing in through the curtains behind him. You raise a hand to cup his roughening cheek, careful to avoid touching the small cut on his cheekbone.

"...You didn't tell me how it went," You murmur.

"It's not important.”

"It is to me."

"...It was fine."

"James."

“Don’t be such a worrywart.”

He turns his head, brushing his lips along your palm. You push a soft sigh out through your nose, closing your eyes. The two of you lay there in the early morning quiet, settling back into sleepiness for a little while. When you hear the scratching at the door, you lift your head, glancing back toward it. You grin as James groans, turning his head and pressing his face into the pillow.

"I've got them,"You offer.

"Hang on,"James uses his grip on you to tug you closer. His eyes are still closed, and you smile as his lips blindly seek out yours. He brushes a kiss to your chin, your cheek.

"You've almost got it—you've almost—" You giggle, grinning when his lips finally smooth over yours. You curl your fingers under his jaw, kissing James warmly. The touches linger, lips slipping tenderly along one another's—until you hear Holly whine.

"Okay," You murmur, drawing back from James, "I can't hear that, it breaks my heart."

"You're such a soft-touch these days," James sighs, flopping back in bed. You reach down, tweaking his nose before you stand, heading for the dresser. You get changed into joggers and a comfy sweater before you sit on the edge of the bed to pull on socks. You have to fight the urge to giggle as James' foot nudges along your thigh.

"Having fun back there?"You ask.

"Get back quickly."

"So bossy. We'll see what the babies want to do."

"Must I bat my eyelashes and say please?"

You roll your eyes, turning to look at James, and grinning when you find him gazing at you sleepily.

"I'll put the coffee on before I go out," You reach down, patting his calf before standing.

--

When the puppies (they're not really puppies anymore, but they'll always be puppies to you) charge back into the apartment, you hear the scratching and scrambling of paws charging for the kitchen.

"You're lucky it wasn't raining out," You call out as you shrug out of your coat. 

"Oh?"

"Mm. I'd've had to wipe down their paws. I'd be making you mop up the floor right now."

"I checked before I put their food out."

"Good boy, old dog," You tease as you stroll into the kitchen. James shakes his head a little bit, a smile adorning his lips as you lean in for a gentle peck. James' arm snakes around your middle, tugging you closer before you can pull away. He groans softly as the kiss grows deeper, his tongue slipping between your lips. You loop your arms around his shoulders, gently pressing them into his skin before drawing away. You smile, sliding a hand up into his sleep-mussed hair.

"Love that you've neglected a shirt this morning," You tease.

"The apartment's warm enough."

"Mm. Giving the neighbors an eyeful."

James chuckles, nudging your nose with his.

"Don’t be jealous. Coffee?"

"Please."

James lets go of you just long enough to push a mug closer to you on the counter.

"You're a saint," You mutter, stepping back.

"Innumerable sources would disagree with you," James comments, heading for the fridge. You push yourself back to sit on the counter, glancing over to where Holly and Bernard are chowing down.

"I'm surprised you're up," You admit.

"Of course I'm up. I was told there would be coffee."

You smile, watching James putter around the kitchen. He still has his own flat, but it’s simply to keep up appearances at HQ. It's all for show; Mallory is more than aware of your entanglement with the double oh these days. He hasn't acknowledged it openly, but in your time working as a handler, you've come to recognize his displeasure or disapproval with a look. You'd had one such a look when you'd returned from your brief excursion helping Breanna. Of course, that disapproval may've been related to your undertaking a non MI6-related mission and potentially endangering a relationship with a foreign government by acting alone...Or it would've be interpreted as such, if Mallory's eyes hadn't darted from the back of Bond's head, then to you, narrowing slightly in the process.

Regardless of having his own place, Bond hardly ever occupies it. His mail (the little bit that he gets) is directed to your flat. All of his clothing is in your dresser and closet; M's bulldog token to him now sits on your mantle, beneath the television, beside the framed picture of Holly and Bernard in their Christmas costumes.

"How hungry are you?" He asks.

"Slightly...Don't forget, we're going to Eve’s tonight for dinner."

Bond grunts, and you can't help but grin in turn.

"C'mon, you love it, really," You tease, "It's good for you to socialize, old dog."

James shoots you a sidelong glance as he rifles through the fridge before he turns back, taking out the eggs, bread, milk, and setting them on the counter.

"What are you making, then?" You press.

"French toast."

"You're too good to me."

--

“There you are—Christ, hurry in,” Eve insists. “You look half-drowned.”

“I couldn’t get away from the office,” You sigh, “And then once I did, I couldn’t get an uber. They kept cancelling.” You shrug out of your coat, glancing down at your damp top. Maybe Moneypenny has one that you could borrow.

“About time,” Bond drawls from down the hall. You cast him an irritate glance, grumbling, “Don’t you start.”

His amused smile drops away as he gets a proper look at you, and he straightened up, sliding past Eve. You watch as he pulls his jumper off, his undershirt untucking slightly and revealing a thin strip of his belly.

“Bond,” You sigh softly as he steps closer, gesturing for you to remove your damp top. You glance toward an amused Eve, her grin wide as James shields your body with his. You hurriedly remove your shirt, hanging it up beside your coat before you let Bond pull the warm jumper down over your head. You catch on the scent of his cologne as he does, reveling in the warmth of him as you push your arms through the sleeves.

“You’re such a worrywart.”

“I should’ve brought you a spare,” Bond grumbles to himself as he draws the thick fabric down over your sides.

“You couldn’t have known I’d need one.” You gaze him with a warm, chastising smile before you reach up, cupping his cheek. “Thank you.”

James leans in, giving you a warm, gentle kiss before drawing away, his warm nose nudging your chilled one.

“My god, Bond,” Moneypenny sighs, leading the way into her living room. “Who knew you were such a romantic?”

[creelkobblelaufeyson69]

Movie night

Warnings: panic attacks

Their friend Dave was picking out a movie to watch. They were in the kitchen making popcorn and getting all the snacks out. They got a text, but their phone was in their living room. Dave picked up their phone to see Sam calling

He grins at the idea of getting the two together finally. He always loved playing Cupid, and even thought he was doing a good job at it as well. He answered with a smirk on his face. They didn’t hear their phone go off, but they did hear the house phone go off

They never understood why Dave still had a house phone, since he didn’t work somewhere that needed one. Having seen way too many of the Stab films, they reluctantly ignored it. Paranoia seeps into their body

The thought of some creep being on the other line was 50/50, but they also rationalized that it could just be a telephone marker. This calms them down as the popcorn had stopped. They take the popcorn out, and poured it into a big bowl to share with their friend

The phone stopped ringing, just for it to ring again. “Can you answer that? It’s getting on my fucking nerves” Dave shouts, which makes them annoyed. They went over to place the now empty popcorn bag in the trash, and then picked up the phone. They answered even if they really didn’t want to

“Hello?” They stood in silence and out of fear. The voice they’ve dreaded of being on the other end was there. They felt sick. The person repeated what they said. “Is this some sick joke?” They managed to say as they felt so sick at the moment

“No. Who is this?” They couldn’t hold in their throw up, and so they went in the luckily empty sink. “Who is this?” The person asked again after they were done vomiting. “Fuck you” they say weakly as they felt lightheaded now. “Is that how you talk to your mother?” The person asked with adding their name after mentioning their mother

“Please stop” they begged as they placed the phone on their shaking shoulder blade. “Stop what? I’m just having a little fun. Speaking of fun, what’s your favorite scary movie?” They cleaned up the sink and then their hands afterwards. “The one where you’re not talking to me” they snapped as they now sat down on the cold white tiled floor

“That’s not fucking funny” the person says in annoyance. “Well what you’re doing isn’t either” their jaw was shaking now, which makes the person chuckle. “You look so cute this afraid” the person says, which makes them hear footsteps. “Too bad Sam will never get here on time to see you alive” this makes them confused for a moment, until the footsteps neared

They hanged up, and felt so defeated. This is how they’ll die. They hated themselves for being so fucking vulnerable. They wished they could fight, but they knew they’d end up accidentally hurting themselves instead of the killer. Someone in a GhostFace costume approaches them, and they felt sick again

The person was about to attack, but Sam caught the person’s attention. “I got you guys!” Dave takes off the mask, which makes them angry now. “It was just a-“ “I’m taking them out of here.” Sam goes over, and helps them up. “But what about movie night?” Dave asked. “We’re having our own movie night now”

Sam goes into the living room with them to get their phone. Eventually the two make it back to their place. They’ve calmed down by now thanks to Sam. The two were now watching a movie, and we’re cuddling close together. Sam also decides to confess her feelings, which makes the night better already

They smiled, and told them that they liked her back. She smiles at that, and was happy the night had gotten better for her now partner

[jarofstyles]

FICTOBER DAY 23 - Don't Hide That Smile

some cute comforting H <3 sorry for being days late my loves

FICTOBER

Patreon

----------------------

“Y/N…. Come on.” Harry pleaded. “I think that got a smile out of you, don’t hide it away!”

It did, in fact, get a smile out of her. But the absolute fail of a costume had made her very, very upset at first.

In hindsight, Y/N knew that attempting a full costume as a first sewing project was ambitious to say the least. What was supposed to be a floor length gown ended up looking like a giant tube, the seams wonky and her poor attempt of dying the fabric last minute making the fabric look like it had been a weird bleach accident. It was the night before halloween and they’d had a check in, Harry wanting to see and Y/N bursting into tears when he’d aside to see the finished product. 

To make matters worse, she had pretended she had it all under control. To a fashion student Harry. She’d wanted to impress him, but she had made a fool out of herself and told Harry she was a phony, which he quickly reassured she wasn’t and thought it was cute she wanted to impress him. When he’d asked to see it, if maybe he could help fix it, she assured him he couldn’t, but it still didn’t help when his reaction to the dress had been a wide eyed “Oh….” 

That had sent another bout of tears, making Harry panic at now being the source of them, so he tried to mend his error. 

“I didn’t mean a bad, oh!”

“I mean, I’m shocked but I wasn’t trying to be mean!” 

“It isn’t awful, please don’t cry. 

“Babe, it’s camp… no. It’s French.”

The reference to Fleabag made her crying stop for a moment, trying not to laugh. She still felt like a failure when he gently dragged her hands off of her face and tried to wipe her tears, frowning as he really didn’t like to see Y/N upset. No one would. She looked so sad and heart wrenching when she cried, her eyes rounding and the little pout- no. 

“I-It can’t be saved, Harry. I watched project runway and i thought I could do it cheaper but-but its so hard to sew on the little machine I got and-and fabric is so, so expensive!” That was a fact Harry knew firsthand. No wonder he tries to get thrifted things so often. “I thought helping my grandma when I was younger would have paid off but no. So now I look dumb, I cried in front of you and I’ve got no costume. It’s too late to go gething now, they’re all gonna suck.” She sniffled, making his heart throb when her sad look hit him. 

He couldn’t lie- the dress was bad. Awful. He didn’t know how she overestimated or cut the length so long, or why the ruffles were sewn over each other or how the bodice was crooked, but somehow she had created an atrocity. But it was abstract, if you’d want to think of it that way- and god, he needed to to calm her down. Functionally, the dress was useless, but in a matter of art, anything could be good. 

There was no way he wouldn’t be flattered that she had done this to impress him. It was beyond cute and sweet and he just wanted to squish her cheeks and kiss her little lips but he held it together. “It’s okay, sweets. You aren’t dumb, we’re all set with the crying now, and we can find you a costume. It’s totally okay. We can match…” He tried to think of what else they could be. Their original was prince and princess, but he had to think on his toes. Looking around, he prayed for inspiration and to actually be quick on his feet sometimes- and thankfully it was answered as he looked at her muted TV. 

“Pam and Jim!” he exclaimed. “Yes- you have the things to be the cat, I can do the paper shirt thing. What do you think?” 

Y/N seemed to mull it over, sniffling again as her eyes scanned Harry’s face. That had been quick, but… “That’s a good idea.” She smiled slightly, making him sag with relief. He couldn’t handle seeing her sad. “A-are you sure, though? I know it’s a downgrade from the other costume we planned. I’m sorry.” Y/N really did feel stupid about it but it really didn’t seem like Harry minded.

“Not a big deal, baby. Promise.” His hands smoothed her hair back, smiling lightly down at her. Halloween wasn’t his thing and he had agreed to go to the costume party with her so he’d made his costume, but he was sort of relieved considering his prince outfit could get a bit hot. “All that matters is we’re going to be together and ditch Niall’s as soon as we’re ready eat our body weight in sweets. I ordered that variety bag, y’know?” 

Her eyes lit up at the mention, making her nod. “Does it have Kit-Kats?” She whispered, her grin widening when he nodded back. “Okay. It sounds good to me then.” Her face plastered to Harry’s chest, body sagging in relief. The secret was out, the embarrassment was over, and now she could finally breathe again. Although.. “When he said he was going all out for the pe party.. I just really hope Niall doesn’t get one of those fog machines inside the house. You can’t breathe with that stuff on”

“About that….” Harry hissed, pretending to wince. 

“For fucks sake. Maybe we are ditching super early.” “I’ve got no problem with that.”

[antiquepearlss]

haiii hallooo helloooo heyeyeyeyy

jumping and waving at you

im gonna cook with some of these fall asks but ive been really busy with life this week(and being tired...) so this isnt my best ask ever

but your input will help if i ever decide to draw some halloween art of the tts cast(+hugo)(maybe)

what do u think the characters would wear on halloween, like to trick or treat(or wear for the vibes)

raps & eugene always match(sometimes if rapunzel can persuade her, cassie will match too), same w hugo and varian, but all of them dont go trick-or-treating, usually they stay home and give out candy or go to raps' party lol(or both depending on how theyre feelinh yk). when theyve done the trio, i cant stop thinking about cass, eugene, and raps beinh the mean girls trio... like regina, karen, and gretchen😭🙏 and hugo and varian have probably done nerdy ones(or, hear me out, seymore & audrey || from little shop of horrors)

catalina is a werewolf every year/j

frs, lance & the girls probably go as a big trio, or the girls do completely different costumes and lance just wears a funny halloween shirt(or dresses up as a character he likes), kiera has been a ninja turtle at least once(i feel like shed like tmnt idk...) and catalina was batman one year and everyone kept complementing her

this is not my best... but like please give me ideas bcuz i need to draw something for halloween with this group and i need opinions please im begging and pleadinh on my hands and knees

(while writinh that i tjought abt rapunzel & eugene beinh on of the couples from bridgerton and i think taht would be so cute what...)

Heyy hello hi im jumping back at you but then I trip over my ankles and fall.

(and shush I love your headcanons and asks)

Yes absolutely Rapunzel and Eugene always do cutesy couples costumes, and she makes them herself so they’re always high quality and perfect. She posts them on insta and everyone is jealous. (They absolutely did do Bridgerton one year and she looked like a goddess.) Maybe I’m just a big nerd, but I feel like they’d do a lot of historical couples costumes. They definitely did Hades and Persephone one year.

(They also did this)

I honestly can’t see Varian being the type to dress up unless he’s forced (by Rapunzel), same with Hugo. But sometimes they’ll do half-assed couples costumes if they go to Rapunzel’s party. It’s usually just a thrift store cosplay lmao. One year they did Gatsby and Daisy because the guy who plays Gatsby on Broadway sounds a lot like Varian for some reason…. Varian probably dressed up as a bunch of scientists barely anyone even knows of as a kid, though. (I feel like it would be really funny if New Dream and Varigo dressed as eachother one year hehe.)

Lance, I think he either just wears a Halloween t-shirt or he coordinates costumes with the girls, because I feel like they’d want to match sometimes. And if not, maybe he just puts on a fun mask. I feel like he goes all out for Raps’ parties though. He definitely has dressed as David Bowie on multiple separate occasions.

Cat absolutely went through a wolf phase. And did dress up as a wolf, a lot. Kiera dressed as a vampire one year to match her.

Cass doesn’t dress up unless she’s forced both mentally and physically. (She dressed up as Joan Of Arc for three straight Halloweens as a kid. And then Artemis for another three.)

[save-the-villainous-cat]

Hello,

I love your work, can you please do a snippet of the hero doing something reckless and the villian gets mad at them?

Thanks❤

The hero knew exactly what that face meant. This was so unnecessary. But the villain didn’t say it, no, they kept walking with their coat draped over their arm, letting the chilly air hit them voluntarily.

Eventually, it was the hero who broke the silence. The hero who felt like they had to make this right because, simply, it was their fault after all.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Ugh. Spare me,” the villain answered, raising one arm and waving it through the air. The hero could tell they were angry. Could see how they avoided the eye contact the hero was trying to establish, how the muscles in their jaw were tight.

So, the hero fell silent and walked with the villain down the dark street. It was way past midnight and they would’ve probably still been in their costumes around this time. On any other day, definitely.

The guilt was eating them up until they realised that they were, in fact, not responsible for the villain’s actions.

“Okay, you didn’t have to do that, you know? I had everything under control,” the hero said. They stretched their fingers subconsciously, feeling how the skin was ripped open and dried blood rubbed off. It was their fault, sure. But they hadn’t asked the villain to fight for them. Feeling bad for something the villain had done was stupid.

“Yeah, I saw that when that guy was kicking your ass. Really had it under control.” The villain looked at them condescendingly, judging them. They hadn’t washed off the blood yet, the blood that was probably also theirs. Neither had the hero. There had been no time when the bartender had kicked them out.

“They were a villain. A really bad one. I had to do something,” the hero said.

“With no weapons and no powers? I thought you knew better than that.”

“I needed to do something. I couldn’t let him slip through my fingers.”

“What you needed to do was think.” The villain spun around, looking all violent in the light of the street lamps, covered in splatters of blood. “Just for one bloody minute. Think and weigh your options.”

Anger rose in the hero’s chest and pushed down into their rib cage, fueling their tongue. Their heartbeat pushed up and up and up.

“I was doing fine. I didn’t ask you to get involved.”

“You were outnumbered. One to what? One to six? Six people that had highly specialised weapons to, oh, I don’t know, murder heroes with?” the villain asked. They were really agitated now, their former shushed voice getting stronger by the second.

But the hero wasn’t going to back off that easily. They hadn’t thought this mission would turn into an argument this fast. It was true that they’d asked the villain for help. In exchange for money, they were both spying on people and gathering information.

It shouldn’t have bothered the villain. The villain should’ve sat back and enjoyed the show but they’d decided to punch the other villains in the bar.

All for their cover? Maybe? The hero wasn’t sure.

“I had a plan. If you hadn’t—” A dry laugh left the villain’s mouth and within seconds, they pinned the hero against against the next best brick wall.

“I know an idiot when I see one and you are definitely breaking the mould for the definition of idiocy.” The hero blinked a few times, truly offended and strangely interested in what the villain would do next. “Good piece of advice? Don’t run into a bar full of villains and fight them when you don’t have any weapons on you. Our plan was to spy. Nothing more.”

They let go of the hero’s clothes, looking them up and down. Their gaze lingered a little too long on the hero’s bruises.

“You’re subverting the mission.”

“I can’t subvert my own mission,” the hero said.

Again, the villain stared them down, shaking their head slightly but eventually they grabbed the hero’s wrist and pulled them towards home while mumbling things like “dumbass” and “fool.”

[celestie0]

🪷 CTFUUUUUU your gojo and reader sex tape post was so hilarious omg. Ngl to me they don't give the vibes of a couple that make one (I don't mean this as an insult omfg now that I wrote it it sounds rude as hell) but the type who are professional phone fuckers.

Doja cat's Cyber sex is their national anthem I just know it I had a little locker room talk with reader she told me 😙. And yeah what you said abt gojo's schedule being all over the place as a player I'd thought that too, which is why phone sex is 🔛🔝 for these two. Just two freaky frogs omg I know that dude sluts her out bad and she doesn't want it any other way

He's a player (the *other* type of player) too so ofc he'd have expertise in the area of tasteful nudes but reader's learning curve will be so exponential gojo would be left in the dust in a short amount of time😁 RIP BOZO‼️

Imagine a little roleplay scenario where reader dresses up as a cheerleader for gojo after he returns from winning some final match as a victory treat. That dong goes up at an angle of elevation so steep you could make a mean trigonometric question off of it. I need him BAD I need him esp when he's sweaty after a gym or practice session I'd climb that man like jack was climbing that beanstalk.

Anyway I hope you've been doing well sweets! Thanks for being so nice to me in your last ask and I cannot wait to see what you have in store for us I wanna see that horndog be his authentic slutty self around reader finally 🗣️🗣️

Imagine a little roleplay scenario where reader dresses up as a cheerleader for gojo after he returns from winning some final match as a victory treat.

oh dear sweet baby jesus the scream i SCRUMPT AT THIS…HOW HAVE I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT oh mygooodd that’d be so fuckin hot 😩😩😩 i ran to add that to my notes LOL my head is in my hands i need to write that so fucking bad. HIM RAILING HER WHILE SHE’s WEARING A SKIMPY LIL CHEERLEADER COSTUME AFTER HE JUST PLAYED AN INTENSE GAME babe u cooked w this ty

HAHAHA i feel like they would make a sex tape but they obv wouldnt post it or anything lol it’d just be something they’d do when they’re both drunk asf while on vacation in their hotel room n then they freak out once they get home n realize they lost the flashdrive n someone out there in barcelona is now jerking off to their amateur avante garde porno

And yeah what you said abt gojo's schedule being all over the place as a player I'd thought that too, which is why phone sex is 🔛🔝 for these two. Just two freaky frogs omg I know that dude sluts her out bad and she doesn't want it any other way

okay you’re so right ab cyber sex being (at least post grad) kickoff couple’s anthem 🤧 that “i wish u were here rn” yup. but also LMFAO THATS SO TRUE AB THE SLUTTIN HER OUT he’d have her so downbad she’s flashing her titties at the webcam just cuz she wants to see him cum all over his stomach while he’s jerking himself off to her pixels ✋🏼😩 i was not anticipating to start this day off so horny LOL

idk i like to think all the nudes kickoff gojo has received in his life have been raunchy asf so when he’s so desperate to get a glimpse of kickoff reader while he’s away for work n is like “babe send me a pic please” for the first time n she sends something that’s genuinely really tasteful n artistic n subtle but sexy n leaves a bit to the imagination i feel like that wld drive him more insane than any explicit nude ever would HAHAHAHA

THE DONG GOIN UP YOU COULD PERFORM TRIG ON IT IM CRYING babe i wish to be half as funny as you are some day 🤣🤣

thanks my lovee omg im so happy you’re looking forward to it :””) 💕 you’re my honeybunch sugarplum pumpyumpyumpkin i love yaaa

- ellie 🐸

[shardechance]

post mortem #3 rating: t (for swearing) wc: 2.5k warnings: none for this snippet, however please be aware that the main work does have a non-con warning.

Seeing as no one in this partnership knows how to be normal, here's a deleted scene from JAWBREAKER between Feyre and the Hughes Twins.

Oscar flicks on the hall light on the way up, a sticky red smear left in his wake—another thing to clear up later. When they clear the doorway, stepping into the dark of the attic, their new bedroom stands on full display: one wardrobe, two dressers, a toy box that’s seen better days, an armchair, a bookshelf only half full, and a bunk bed. They’d begged for one at the old place. Seems they got their wish. 

Oscar reaches for the lights but Ferye stops him. “No, it has to be dark.”

“But I can’t find my PJs!” Finn whines, flopping down on the bottom bunk. They’ll be under his pillow, where his mom always leaves them, but kids are kids and the tiredness is setting in, irritation along with it. Oscar, having had a little less sugar and a little more patience, reaches beneath his brother's head and pulls out the missing garments, flops them onto his face, and scrambles for his own before Finn can retaliate.

“You two go wash up and then we’ll play,” she says, dropping into the plush velvet armchair beneath the skylight. Oscar is already through the door, footfalls loud and quick on the stairs as he rushes to the washroom on the floor below. They creak with every step. Finn whines as he lifts himself from his bed, sluggish feet carrying him to the door. “And brush your teeth. I’ll know if you haven’t, stinky!” 

He grumbles something to himself but he’s too far gone for her to make out the words. 

The armchair is twice as comfortable as the couch downstairs, a million times more comfortable than the mismatched furniture back home. She leans back into it, legs propped up over one of the arms. It’s better than anything they ever had as kids. One giant bed and three gangly sisters sharing the one duvet, kicking each other, huddled closer on winter nights when the heat gave out. Getting her own space, her own bed, had been the peak of her pre-teen years. 

She lets her head rest on the back of the chair, looking to the skylight above. 

It would be a pretty nice view of the sky and stars if it wasn’t for the wayward branch of a neighboring oak obscuring it. Never having a tenant stay longer than a year, being on the housing market longer still, would do that to a place. Moonlight still made it to the attic though, filtered through the sparse leaves.

Her phone vibrates, probably Lucien trying to goad her into ditching again, or sharing the latest gossip in the group chat she hadn’t left yet. Not that Tamlin ever checked it. On Lucien’s last update, he was somewhere in Cambodia or Croatia or somewhere else beginning with a C, still trying to ‘find himself.’ Not like he needed to go that far to do it. Just look in the trash bin and there’s a dozen just like him. 

Part of her—a smug, satisfied part—thinks he left because of what happened between them. Considering the only person he even spoke to anymore was Lucien and even that was via postcard, the evidence stacks up pretty well in her favor. 

Good. Fuck him.

She pulls her phone out but doesn’t check the notification. Doesn’t have a chance to. The telltale whine of old pipes that she’s too familiar with cuts out, and the pitter-patter of bare feet taking the old stairs way too fast sounds after it. She turns on her phone’s flashlight.

“Will you tell us the game now?” Oscar asks, arms full of costume pieces he’ll likely have grown out of by next Halloween. 

Finn does the same, barreling past to jump onto his bed. A breathless “Please!” as he lands in the bed face down. His twin sits beside him, legs folded criss-cross on the comforter.

Feyre takes a second to draw them closer, flipping her phone upside down so the flashlight shines upwards. By the looks on their faces—equal parts enraptured and terrified—it’s clear she has them right where she wants them. 

“Boys.” Wind surges outside, rattling bare branches against the rooftop. It’s not quite lightning, but it’ll do. “We’re going to talk to spirits.”

Oscar’s awe turns to straight up fear. “Spirits? Like… ghosts?” 

“Hey! Ghosts can’t get you if you’re in bed,” Finn chimes in. “Everybody knows that. Mom said so.”

They bicker back and forth about the logistics of whether it has to be your bed specifically or if just any bed will do. Finn concludes that the best place to be during a ghost attack would be a mattress store. Oscar counters with but how are there so many haunted hotels? which only serves to lead them down a different path of how does he know that and who has been sneaking off to watch Most Haunted reruns even though Mom said they shouldn’t. Feyre lets them argue, for the most part, only jumping in when it seems things might come to blows.

“Did I say anything about ghosts?” she says.

Finn shakes his head, but Oscar—oh, poor baby. 

“Anyway,” Feyre continues, “I put some salt on your window when you were getting cleaned up. Totally ghost-proof, I promise.” A lie, obviously, but she’d seen it in a TV show somewhere and, by the way Oscar’s shoulders retreat from beside his ears, it convinces him well enough. “Do you want to play or not?” 

“We want to play! Right, Ozzie?”

“Right.” Although, Oscar seems marginally less convinced.

“If you say so,” Feyre shrugs. She hands her phone to Oscar who, in typical kid fashion, twists it so the light shines under his chin, but jumps at the glare. She grabs his wrist, gently turning until the light faces down at his blue green comforter instead. “It’s super important that you hold this still. That keeps us connected to the spirits.” 

A purple velvet bag, in all its faded filigree beauty, sits between them.

It’s been too long since she’d last done a reading, usually only reaching for them on the off chance she remembered, or if she’d had a particularly bad day. She doesn’t believe in all the witch stuff like Elain used to, the full moons and incense and tea blends made from garden herbs. No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just… nice to think that there’s a connection to something bigger out there, even if sometimes it takes a pile of old paper for her to realize it. 

Her skin prickles as she touches the velvet, pulling the worn cards from their home. 

“These—” she starts, spreading the deck between her fingers so the boys can see the pictures. Bright and bold and dark and faded all at once. “—are Tarot cards.” 

“Tarot cards?” Oscar wavers with her phone, light dipping but Finn steadies his brother’s hand before she can chastise him for it. 

She nods. “That’s right, and they’re going to help us ask the spirits a question. The cards are a conduit–uh…a tool, I guess? You ask a question in your head, focus on it really hard and pick the card that calls to you. I have to shuffle them first though, mix them all up.”

“They speak?” Finn asks, as she does her best to shuffle the deck. He’s sat so close to Oscar now, knees touching in the dark like that extra point of contact can offer comfort in a way words cannot. Even like this, they’re inseparable.

“Not with words. You’ll feel it in your heart, or your head, maybe your toes. It’s different for different people.” Feyre keeps her words calm, soothing. It’s not meant to be a spooky exercise. It’s not. God, if they wake up in the middle of the night with bad dreams—no, she keeps it cool, smiling a little as she spreads the cards face down atop the bedspread. An arc before all three of them. “To me, it feels warm. Like the sun.”

Oscar lets the phone droop a second time, and when Feyre looks up to him, his eyes are a little wet. “I don’t think I want to play this game.” 

“Ozzie, please!” Finn pleads, taking his twin's free hand between his own. 

Feyre takes a second, watching as Finn soothes his brother’s hand. It's the type of thing Nesta used to do for Elain, when storms blew out the breakers and left them in the dark, their father nowhere to be seen. Maybe once she yearned for that kind of connection with someone. It had never been there in her sisters—not that she blamed them, anymore—but she found it in her friends. She found it in her part time jobs. She made it her mission to be that person when she could. Her hand dwarfs both boys’ clenched palms. “It’s gonna be okay, I promise. Do you want me to get the lights?” 

Oscar, looking at his brother then back to the faded gilding of the cards, shakes his head. 

“You sure?” she asks.

He nods once. 

“Since you’re being so brave, do you want to take the first card?” Feyre offers.

It’s with a trembling hand that Oscar reaches for the cards, letting his fingers slip free of his brother’s grip. He hovers a palm above them, moving left and right across the deck, pausing in certain spots like he’s considering taking one, but never staying in a place for too long. Like weaving between invisible strands of magic, sensing the cards and their meanings. 

“I want this one,” he says, pulling a card from the dead center of the arc. What remains of the gold around the card’s edges catches in the flashlight. Feyre doesn’t even realize she’s holding her breath until Oscar flips his card over, revealing an upside down King of Swords.

Finn almost knocks his twin over trying to see the design on the front. A king alone, sat atop a throne, holding a giant sword. Well, it wouldn’t be her first choice, but it’s not a bad card. “Feyre, what does it mean?” 

“Oh, you would get the King.” She smiles a little. “That’s very you, Oscar.” 

Oscar, eyes still a little wide in panic, seems to relax a little at that. “Why is he upside down? Is he okay?” 

“He’s fine. He means something different if he’s upside down is all!” Feyre places it in the space between them, separate from the face down cards, trying to rack her brain for a way to phrase its meaning. Manipulation is such a harsh word. Inner truth, perhaps? Hidden strength? “What do you feel when you look at him?”

“He looks… cool.” 

“Yeah, but how does he make you feel?” 

“Like… Like I want to play again! Can I have another turn?” 

Finn, eternally impatient, balks at that. He doesn’t have the same restraint his twin has. He leans over Oscar, swiping the first card his fingers touch, swishing it into the air before Feyre can remind them to be gentle. He doesn’t even let her see what he pulled, squinting at it for a second, before he pouts and lays it face up next to the other card.

“At least yours was someone cool! Mine’s just some building.” 

The Tower. Oh fuck.

“Some building?” Ferye starts, nudging so the cards are aligned. She hadn’t been expecting to see the Tower, not really, but hey! These things happen. Chaos? Pride? That’s kinda Finn’s thing so it makes sense. He commands that kind of energy. “That’s the tower! One of the most powerful cards in the Deck.”

“Really?” Finn’s eyes light up at that, looking again at the card between them. “I guess the lightning storm is kinda cool.” 

“I’ll bet.” She nods. “I’ll ask you the same question, Finn. What do you feel? What does it remind you of?”

“I don’t know. It’s like when dad used to let us smash sand castles after a beach day. What does it mean?”

Feyre hushes him and, thankfully, he sits back in his place, enraptured as she takes the time drawing her fingertips over the facedown cards. “We haven’t got the full story yet. It’s my turn.” 

There isn’t a specific question in her mind; nebulous thoughts of school and work and home and the two boys only minutes away from sleep, parties she hasn’t been to, assignments she hasn’t done—phantom warmth pricks her index finger. Despite her belief in the metaphysical being skeptic at best, she puts trust in that little spike of warmth, pulling out the final card. 

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. 

“The Devil?” Oscar shrieks, leaning closer whilst simultaneously cringing back. “I thought you said this game wasn’t scary!”

Finn leans into his brother, trying his best to see the goat-headed figure on her card. “That’s awesome! That’s gotta be the coolest one yet! Why is he furry?”

“Hey, the Devil isn’t as bad as everyone thinks!” How do you even begin to explain the intricacies of obsession, passion and sexuality to kids? That’s way above her pay grade. Not a chance. “He gets a bad rap. Not all bad things are really bad, you know? Like… chores! You hate doing them at the time but once they’re done everything feels better, right?” 

Oscar fixes her with a look, dark hair flopping in front of his eyes. “Feyre, it’s the Devil.”

“To me, this means I have an assignment due tomorrow and I need to knuckle down.” Not a lie, but not a full truth either. She does have an assignment—one she hasn’t even started yet—but seeing The Devil tugs on a different part of herself that's probably best kept under wraps. She likes this job. It would be a shame if she scared the kids too much and never got invited back. “It means I need to focus on a few things.”

“That’s kinda… boring.” Finn says, fighting off a yawn. “Can we talk to the spirits now?” 

“We just did, dummy.”

Oscar, seeing his brother fight the clutch of sleep, fails in his own battle. “That was it? What did they say?” 

“They say it’s bedtime. Now.” Feyre collects the unused cards, slotting in the three they chose throughout the deck. Only once they’re all safely in their little velvet pouch does she raise from the bed, letting Finn crawl beneath the comforter. Oscar follows suit, the allure of sleep near irresistible. She lets them get comfortable, standing by the skylight, looking up at the branch blocking most of the view.

“Do you like it?” Finn asks, sounding so much smaller, already halfway to sleep. “Dad says he’s gonna build us a treehouse next summer. We’re gonna have sleepovers and everything.”

Feyre starts towards the door, slowly waiting for creaks of the old floor to announce her slow departure. “For real? Am I invited?” 

Finn shakes his head, or snuggles down further into his comforter. Oscar peeks over the edge of the top bunk, eyes half shut already. “No girls allowed.” 

“Figures.” She reaches the door, pulling it just enough to slip through. One last look over her shoulder confirms what she already guessed. “Night, boys.” 

She doesn’t get a response.

[ladylynse]

Part 2 of this untitled Doctor Who fic where 10 meets up with Grace Holloway again. Posted for @scaehime, who was interested in more.

EDIT: Now tweaked and expanded upon on the AO3.

-|-

The Doctor jolted awake. He tried to claw the oxygen mask off his face, but a pair of gloved hands held it more firmly in place. “Don’t worry, Mr. Smith,” someone said. “It’s simply a precaution. We—”

But the Doctor wasn’t willing to simply listen. “I’m not signing anything,” he said, albeit with difficulty, and his voice was muffled anyway. “I’m not going to let you do anything. No x-rays, no—”

“Mr. Smith, please remain calm.”

“Calm?” the Doctor repeated, anything but. “Calm? You’re trying to...you…you….” He trailed off. An oxygen mask, he’d thought. But then he’d breathed it, and analyzed it. And it wasn’t just oxygen. At least, not anymore. He had to wonder if he’d even said what he’d meant to say, whether or not it had been heard.

This time he did manage to get the mask off his face. “How long,” he gasped out, “have I been in here?”

“You were brought into emergency three hours ago,” came the steady reply. “You’re stable now. You were in shock. Do you remember what happened?”

“Partially,” the Doctor replied, looking distracted. “Did a Vera Taylor tell you who I was?”

“That’s right. Dr. Taylor has insisted that we treat you as we treated her.” A small laugh. “Like everyone else, in other words. We try to give the best treatment possible. You’re in good hands, Mr. Smith.”

The Doctor thought for a moment, cursing whatever they’d given him. He hated being slow on the uptake. “Did you say,” he finally asked, “that I’ve been here for three hours?” Without waiting for a reply, he continued, “And, oh, three hours is a long time, isn’t it? Lots of lovely tests you could run.” He sat up abruptly, wincing as his movement partially dislodged an IV from his arm. He pulled it out carefully and turned to assess the nurse who was taking care of him. He scrutinized her for a moment, seeing if he could place her face among his blurred recollections of the time he’d woken up on the operating table, but couldn’t. That was a bit of a relief.

“Mr. Smith, I have to ask you to—”

“Sorry,” he interrupted. He squinted at her nametag. “But, Rachel, I’m fine now. I don’t need oxygen, I don’t need an IV, and I don’t need whatever else you were going to give me.” He glanced down. “Though, I wouldn’t mind my clothes, bloodied or not.” He frowned. “That’ll take a bit of mending. Shame. I hate mending. I can take it to Neo-Sydney, I suppose. They’ve expert tailors there. Then again, the prices, and they don’t fancy taking….” He trailed off and cleared his throat. “Still. Better than making do with a costume again.”

“Mr. Smith—”

“Yes, I know, it’s against regulations and all that, but, without them, I can’t show you my ID to—” He stopped, frustrated. “Oh, what’s it matter. I can’t stay. I have more important things to be doing. I shouldn’t even have come in the first place.”

“Mr. Smith, your condition has stabilized for the moment, but I would advise not disregarding the doctor’s recommendations by—”

“Oh, but I wouldn’t be disregarding the Doctor’s recommendations,” the Doctor cut in. “Because I think I know my body a bit better than you, thanks.” He reached for the chart at the foot of the bed.

Rachel smirked at him. “So it’s true. Doctors are the worst patients.”

The Doctor, however, wasn’t paying attention. He flipped from one page to the next and back again, then skipped ahead and frowned. “You’ve scheduled me for an appointment with a cardiac specialist?” he asked slowly.

“Your heartbeat was erratic,” Rachel pointed out. “Even accounting for the shock, the range was worrisome.”

“Speeding up and slowing down,” the Doctor murmured, deciding he’d better not ramble too much in case she decided to have psychiatric check up on him. Twenty-eight beats a minute, then racing to well over a hundred and twenty-eight in an effort to compensate for the fact that his right heart still wasn’t beating. He was lucky he hadn’t slipped into a healing coma. He was liable to find himself locked up in the morgue again if he did.

At the very least, he was lucky they hadn’t cut him open with the intention of putting in a pacemaker or some such nonsense.

“Dr. Taylor was able to pull a few strings,” Rachel informed him, gently pulling the chart away from his hands. “Dr. Holloway will see to you herself.”

“Oh. Right.” The Doctor frowned. He’d managed to walk right into this, hadn’t he? Sure, he’d been debating having a quick conversation with her, and he had landed and set off, but if he was set to meet up with Grace again, this wasn’t what he’d pictured. Him tracking her down, yes, but if he went into the hospital, he wouldn’t have gone in as a patient. At least, not with injuries of this sort. Still, perhaps just bumping into her on the street would’ve been best. But not this. Well, could be worse, he supposed. He wasn’t on the operating table again.

Nearly had been, but wasn’t.

“Clothes?” he prompted, looking up at Rachel again.

“You’ll want someone to bring you a fresh set,” she admitted.

Oh, brilliant. They’d gone and cut them off him, then. He might just be reduced to making off with someone else’s. Again. What would it be now, the third time? There was his third regeneration, and his eighth, and—

“But my coat?” he asked. He didn’t want to lose his coat. He had important things in that coat. Come to that, he had important things in his suit pockets, too. “And, er, you haven’t disposed of my suit yet, have you?”

“Your things are safe, Mr. Smith.” Rachel stood up. “I’ll ask you to wait here while I call Dr. Miller in to speak with you personally.”

“If I'm going to talk to a doctor,” the Doctor replied, “I would prefer it to be Grace, if that’s possible. Is she free?”

“She didn’t—”

“Brilliant,” the Doctor interrupted. “Thank you. Off you go now, Rachel; time’s a-wasting.” He settled back into bed, waiting for her to leave. She looked startled, but she did as she was told.

The minute she was out the door, the Doctor allowed himself a small moan. Ooh, how humans could stand it with just one heart, he didn’t know. Though, he was lucky they hadn’t tried to give him anything. Probably had something to do with the good Dr. Taylor, that. She’d held up remarkably well, all things considered. She reminded him a bit of Grace. And even a little of Sarah Jane, come to think of it.

But he didn’t have time to think of it. He had to get out of here. They’d taken x-rays. And he wasn’t sure they’d just chalk it up to a double exposure again. He wasn’t even quite sure when he was—something he hated admitting; he had a reputation to uphold, after all—and he didn’t fancy going through anything like 2012 Utah again, to name one of the more recent unpleasant experiences he’d had on Earth. 

Now was not the time to draw attention to himself by trying to start up his right heart.

He slowly made his way down the hallway and a couple flights of stairs, alternately trying doors and dodging into rooms, occupied or otherwise, to avoid anyone who looked overtly official. He wasn’t sure how far he’d get, dressed as he was, but he was willing to give it a shot. And he could always pretend he was lost. It was fair enough, he figured, even if it was, likely as not, going to get him a ticket to psychiatric. Ah, well; he deserved a bit of fun. He hadn’t had as much as he liked lately. The last time he’d gone looking for it, things hadn’t exactly gone according to plan.

If hadn’t been for one wise, stubborn human, he would have knowingly destroyed an entire timeline.

Sure, it had reasserted himself, skirting around a few anomalies, but he’d been willing to…. He’d tried to sacrifice.... He’d….

“These are his things?”

“Yes. That’s all we found his pockets. No ID, no money—nothing to support his claims to Dr. Taylor.”

Grace. And someone he didn’t recognize. He’d better get out of here. Quickly. He could nip back and gather his things, then be on his way no worse for the wear. Grace might wonder, but he didn’t recall carrying anything on him now that she would recognize. He’d even had the locks changed; the TARDIS key was different. Though that was more because he couldn’t stand the constant reminder of Gallifrey than anything else. Still. New key, new sonic screwdriver….

New body.

Twice over.

And he had no right to ask. To ask would be to burden her with his problems, because she was the sort of person who would take the burden without being asked and wouldn’t lay it down, no matter what he told her. No matter how much he pleaded with her. And he had no right to do that. She’d built a wonderful life for herself. Moved on, just like she should have. Because she’d recognized—

The Doctor dashed into the nearest room. “Oh, hello,” he greeted cheerfully as a rather frail lady looked up at him. “I seem to have gotten the wrong room. I was looking for a Ms. Jones?” He phrased it as a question, but spent some time looking about the room, wandering deeper into it—and away from the doorway—and making it clear that he didn’t expect an answer. “Terribly sorry,” he added. “I’m the, ah, man from just down the hall. John Smith.” He stuck out his hand, grinning widely.

“Dorothy Mae,” the woman replied finally, taking his hand. “You shouldn’t be up and about, young man. I may not be a doctor, but I’m a mother and a grandmother, and you should be in bed. You’re too pale. Never mind that this is a hospital. I’m here after my hip replacement. You,” she added pointedly, looking him up and down again, “look like you got on the wrong side of a fight.” She didn’t sound particularly approving.

The Doctor tugged on an ear. “Yeah, well,” he said, shrugging his shoulders a bit. “Wasn’t intentional. Just trying to help, me. Nothing serious. They’ll be letting me out as soon as they can process the paperwork, I daresay. Need the beds, I think. But my friend—”

“If they’re going to release you when you look like that,” Dorothy Mae interrupted, “then I will be speaking with my doctor about the sort of care they’re giving here.”

The Doctor began to think that perhaps engaging the woman in conversation had not been his best idea. He pasted a smile on his face. “Oh, well, no, it’s not the care. I’m checking out. Against their recommendations, admittedly. But, really, it’s just a form or two to sign, and—”

“You,” declared the outspoken, if well-intentioned, Dorothy Mae, “ought to be ashamed of yourself. You’re liable to get yourself killed if you don’t smarten up.”

She looked like she could have berated him for longer, but the Doctor hastily began extracting himself from the conversation. “Yes, true enough; I will reconsider, I suppose, but I ought to go and tell them that, so I’ll just leave you be, won’t I?” He grinned at her and made his escape.

He bumped into someone and tried to continue on his way, but whoever it was caught his arm. “Mr. Smith,” drawled a man’s voice, “I believe you were assigned to room 403?”

“Dr. Miller, I presume?” the Doctor asked, trying not to look guilty. If he’d waited just one more minute.... “Yes. And may I ask why you are a full two floors from your assigned room?” Over Dr. Miller’s shoulder, the Doctor had watched Grace’s face fall. Perhaps she had thought to connect the dots. He didn’t recall telling her that regeneration worked more than once. Granted, he hadn’t exactly had time to explain anything. Common theme in his life, that.

“Oh, well,” he said slowly. “Fancied a bit of a jaunt, that’s all. Looking to see if I could get a cup of tea, to be honest.” Well, partially honest. He wouldn’t mind a cup of tea now. He needed something to clear his head. “And, I was wondering about my things. Could I have them back? Even the suit? I know an excellent tailor.”

“We can discuss this at a later time, once we have you back in your room.” Dr. Miller steered him towards the lift.

“I’ll join you when he’s settled,” Grace said shakily. The Doctor glanced over his shoulder to get a better look at her. She hadn’t changed, really. So perhaps it wasn’t that long after all. Blimey, it better not be before the millennium. He’d be in a spot then. But surely….

The Doctor accepted his scolding meekly, knowing that if he had any chance of getting out of here, it would be better to throw them off guard. And, sometimes, if you played your cards right, and you acted like you really needed something, they’d give it to you. Like shoes. Shoes would be an excellent thing right now. You can only make it so far without shoes. All right, last time he’d made it over to Grace’s house without shoes, but he’d needed the toe tag on as proof, hadn’t he?

The Doctor did his best to ensure that his conversation with Dr. Miller was short. Grace entered shortly after Dr. Miller had finished his scolding—well, chiding, more like, as if he were a child. But when she came in, holding his coat—and it would take a bit to get those stains out—and a small paper bag, presumably his other things, he almost didn’t want Dr. Miller to leave. He regretted being so apologetic and compliant. He might’ve bought more time if he hadn’t been.

Because, really…. He didn’t want to face her.

He shouldn’t have come.

“John Smith?” she asked softly, depositing his things at the foot of the bed and settling down on the chair by its head. He saw the sleeve of his suit jacket poking out from the bundle that was his coat. Excellent; she’d gotten that, too.

Still, he had to answer her question. He hesitated, and nodded once, sharply and definitively.

“Where are you from?” she asked, keeping her voice light.

“Nottingham,” he answered. “Brilliant place. You ought to visit it sometime.”

“And may I ask why you wanted to speak with me, and why you told Dr. Vera Taylor that I knew you?”

“Oh, well, I just….” The Doctor trailed off. Grace was smart, and lying wasn’t his forte in this regeneration. “It’s been a long while, that’s all. I knew you wouldn’t recognize me.”

She was thinking it. He could tell by the expression on her face. Blinking abruptly, she reached for his chart, scanning it. He watched her shoulders fall. “They want to keep you for monitoring,” she noted. “You’ve a bad heart.”

“It’s just overworked,” the Doctor said bluntly. “Temporary. A victim of circumstances, if you will.”

“X-rays inconclusive?” Grace repeated, looking up from the chart. “You’re due for another round, to make sure you didn’t crack a rib. First round was faulty.”

The Doctor was silent for a moment. “Grace,” he said, slowly, deliberately, “may I have my things?” He held out his hand. “Just the bag for now, if you will.”

“I’d prefer Dr. Holloway at the moment, Mr. Smith.”

“Doctor,” the Doctor corrected.

Grace smiled slightly. “Oh, yes,” she amended. “I do recall Vera mentioning that. Dr. Smith, then.”

“Doctor,” the Doctor repeated, watching her hand falter as she reached for the bag.

She turned back to look at him. “I’m afraid, Dr. Smith, that I do not take to calling anyone simply by their profession. Particularly those from Nottingham.” She passed the paper bag to him.

The Doctor took it and smiled. “Well, it’s a bit more than a profession.” He overturned the bag to see what he could find. They hadn’t found much. Sonic screwdriver, TARDIS key, wallet of currently blank psychic paper—pity, that; might be a bit harder to fool them, if they recognized the covering—and his spectacles. Just some surface things, nothing from too deep in his pockets.

And nothing Grace would recognize.

Though, he had to decide, now, whether or not he was going to go through with it. He’d meant to. But then, he thought maybe it would be best if he didn’t. Because the only reasons he’d meant to have any conversation at all with her were selfish reasons. He wanted to know what she’d seen, and how she’d recognized it—how she’d seen what he, and so many others, couldn’t.

A friend had once told him that if you could choose who lives and who dies, you would be a monster. And he’d agreed whole-heartedly at the time. It wasn’t even that long ago. How could he have forgotten that conversation? How could he have turned his back on that so utterly? How could he have disregarded everything and gone and done it anyhow?

He’d needed to be taken down a few pegs.

It hadn’t taken much.

But it was too much all the same.

One life had had to be ended to keep history on track.

And he hadn’t been the one to realize that.

He’d been the one to ignore it.

And then he’d been shown how important it all was, and how foolish and arrogant he’d been, and how wrong he’d been, to stray from that, even once. He’d seen what he’d become.

A monster.

“Dr. Smith? Are you all right?”

The Doctor blinked. Grace repeated her question, moving closer to check on him.

No. He couldn’t just leave. He’d come here, and the TARDIS had made sure he’d come this far, sneaky as she was. He wanted to run from this, like he’d run from everything else. But he couldn’t keep everything inside him forever, keeping silent. He had to tell some things to someone.

Someone who would listen.

Someone who might help him to understand.

Someone he’d touched but not destroyed.

“I’m always all right,” the Doctor croaked, pulling away from Grace. He reached instead for his coat, digging in the pockets. He had some in here, he was sure of it. He’d gotten them the same time he’d picked up that chocolate egg at Easter, since he hadn’t had any for years and he had had a bit of a liking for them. They wouldn’t be too old; a couple of months, that’s all.

“Dr. Smith, you should just relax. Your heart—”

Right. Dr. Miller had insisted on hooking him up to that again. Bother it all. “Is compensating,” the Doctor cut in. “That’s all. Temporary, like I said.”

“You’re not well.”

No, he wasn’t. But he was on the mend, now—if he could just stop running, just for a moment, long enough to have a conversation.

“Grace—”

“Dr. Holloway.”

“Grace,” the Doctor repeated, very deliberately, as his hand closed upon a small paper bag of candy. He pulled it out of his coat pocket and offered it to her. “Jelly baby?”

She looked at him uncertainly. “I was informed that they’d gone through your pockets.”

The Doctor shrugged. “They didn’t know what they were looking for. Would you like a jelly baby?”

Grace’s expression hardened. “Stop it,” she hissed.

The Doctor was taken aback. “What?” he asked, blinking at her. He hadn’t meant to actually offend her. Yet that was how she was acting.

“Who put you up to this?” she continued angrily. “I’m not having it, you hear? I’ve had enough with people laughing at me. I’m not telling that story anymore.”

Oh.

He hadn’t expected that.

Of course, he wasn’t entirely sure what he had expected.

He hadn’t thought about it all too much.

“What year is it?” he asked slowly.

Wrong question, it seemed, with what she thought of him now. “I’ll thank you not to persist in telling tales in an attempt to speak to me again,” she said sharply, rising to her feet. “Good day, Mr. Smith.”

“Doctor,” he corrected again.

She glared at him. “Dr. Smith, then. Good day.”

“I’d missed you, Grace,” he said truthfully. “But I’d still thought that I was doing the right thing by not coming back. After you’d made your choice, I mean.”

It wasn’t enough to catch her attention, and she started out the room, ignoring him.

And, well, now that he’d made the decision to talk to her, he wanted to talk to her.

So he made sure that he did catch her attention. “The Master survived, you know. Getting sucked into the Eye. But she’s closed now. Room’s locked, good and tight. Even I can’t get into it. Don’t think I will, unless circumstances change.”

She turned back at the doorway to look at him. “How long?” she asked, her voice still cold.

“Pardon?”

“How long have you spent listening to my stories, gathering every bit of information from every story I’ve ever told the children in the recovery ward? And why do you insist on patronizing me?”

She was defensive. Hurt.

Because of him.

Because she’d believed in him and had told her story.

He’d still managed to….

“I’m sorry,” he said, genuinely contrite. “I am so, so sorry, Grace. I didn’t know.”

“Dr. Holloway,” she corrected, but her voice had softened slightly.

And then she was gone.

(Part 3)

[love-and-monsters]

Feathered Dragon Partner

Nonbinary feathered dragon X gn reader, 11382 words

So I finished this and I did not proofread it and now I’m posting it so. I hope it scans. Let me know what you guys think. Might be kind of quiet on here for a while bc I’m trying to actually write my own novel, so. We’ll see how that goes. Anyway, enjoy. 

A chance encounter at the market, a free sample, and an unfortunate injury. What do they all have in common? Why, a certain feathery, scaly friend who is quite interested in you!

Content warning for minor injury and mention of medical malpractice causing physical harm. 

The Avieras Festival was in full swing, and you were ducking, dodging, and weaving your way through the patrons that packed the street so thickly it was near-impossible to find space. Most of them were in elaborate costumes, which only made navigating tricker. Some wouldn’t care if you trod on a hem or feather as you hurried by, but others would care. And they usually cared enough to spend ten minutes lecturing you on exactly how expensive the fabric you’d just ruined with your bootprint was. And sometimes they even cared enough to stick you with a dry cleaning bill, which was really the last thing you needed. So, you avoided stepping on people in general.

Festival days were good business days, generally, but you needed to find the right location to set up. Too much in the thick of it and you’d risk your wares getting knocked over by overeager or drunk patrons. Too far out and no one would be interested.

You located, after a few minutes of searching, an alcove that offered enough shade to be comfortable, and enough light to draw in patrons. As soon as you reached the spot, you snapped open your charmed bag and pulled out a sturdy roll of carpet, which you set on the ground in front of you, and your wares.

A table would have been better to show them off, since putting them so close to the ground risked them getting dirty, but even a collapsed folding table would have been hard to fit through the opening of your bag, so you let it be. The carpet sufficed, and you had two thin racks to display your best work upon. They would be sufficient to draw customer attention.

This part was the worst part. You enjoyed the crafting and the creating and not so much the selling. But, well. It was part of the job. So, you slapped the best smile you could on your face and started waving enthusiastically to the crowd. Every now and then, you’d see someone pause as their eyes snag on one of your creations and you called out to them. “Hello, ma’am! Yes, this mask will go wonderfully with your costume, see the lovely yellow, and the purple accents will bring out the richness of the color! Oh, and I have a hairpiece that goes perfectly if you’d like to bundle them together-”

You’re not bad at selling, but it does feel a lot like you’re putting up an act. It’s not like you’re not proud of your work- you wouldn’t sell your festival masks and accessories if you weren’t pleased with how they came out. But the energy required to act cheery and polite and overly-enthusiastic was ridiculously draining. By a couple of hours in, your stock was over half-gone, and you were utterly grateful. Perhaps you would sell out early and you could grab some delicious fried food and scuttle away to your home before the night got too wild.

“Well, aren’t these just delightful,” someone mused from entirely too close to you, and it took all your customer service skills to smile cheerfully instead of screaming and leaping out of your skin.

The prospective customer was leaning over your stand, gazing at your wares with clear interest. You recognized them, if only dimly. They worked as a butcher, and you’d seen them several times when you picked up food from the store. However, they’d always had their hair up and their feathers tucked away when they worked. Now, they were letting their hair hang free down their back, almost to their waist. Their skin was oddly colored, almost milky, with scales along the backs of their limbs. Plumes of feathers decorated their ears and their scaled tail. AS they shifted their weight, one of their hands resting on their generous hips, their skin caught the light and glowed in opalescence. The scales on their forehead had been picked out with some silvery makeup, making them stand out even more.

You picked your jaw off the floor and slapped your customer service hat back on. “Ah, thank you very much! You already seem fairly well-feathered, but perhaps I could offer you a small hairpin? I have some that aren’t quite so ornate if you’re looking for something lower key.”

As they leaned forward to examine your wares, you swept a critical eye over them. It was sort of a fun guessing game you tried to play with yourself, to figure out exactly what species each customer was. Most of the time, you didn’t get an answer, since it was pretty rude to ask someone casually what they were, but it was still fun. The oddest one had been a combination between a merfolk and a dragon, which had resulted in something like a human upper half, albeit completely covered in scales, and a sea-serpent tail. They’d also been a remarkably good customer, though they’d tried haggling for a better price.

This person… well, the scales suggested a dragon, but feathered dragons were rare, and even more rarely did they assume a humanoid form. Not to mention they had wings. Perhaps some sort of hybrid, then? Or maybe a harpy and dragon hybrid? You’d never seen one, though it did seem like this one should be more feathered if it really was a combination.

They cleared their throat and you hurried to focus your mind on their purchase. You could speculate after they were done. “See anything you like?”

“I believe so,” they said, their eyes flicking up to meet yours. “But I…” They hesitate, their tail curling. The feathered tufts of their ears twitch. “I…”

“Can’t decide?” you asked. It was always sort of flattering when customers felt that way- nice to know you’d been able to catch their eye with multiple pieces. Perhaps a better salesperson would have convinced them to buy both, but you figured if they wanted both, they would have bought them in the first place. You were happy to sell even one piece. “I can help you decide. Which ones do you like?”

The customer hesitated, then selected two ornamented hair clips- a pale pink and a deep sea-green. Both of them matched shades that appeared in their feathers and along their glimmering scales. Either would have been a good choice. You picked them up and held them out consideringly.

“Here, let’s see…” You held both clips up, one on either side of their face, and directed them to look into the mirror. “The pink one is a bit simpler than the green one- less feathers and jewels, see? You’ve got feathers on you already, so I don’t think you need the excess feathers, unless you’re going for an over-the-top look.” You glance over them with a critical eye. “However, the pink also blends in with your outfit a little more, so if you want it to stand out, the green might work better. Are you thinking of wearing this for daily use or just when you’re getting dressed up for a festival or party?”

“I suppose daily,” they said, tilting their head from side to side. Their eyes, bright yellow as topaz, glitter in the sunlight.

“Then the pink might be a little more lowkey,” you declared. “But it’s all up to you, of course.”

They hesitated for a moment longer, considering. “The pink, then,” they said.

“Wonderful,” you said, placing the green clip down on the table. “Would you like me to wrap this or would you like to wear it right away?”

“Right away,” they said.

“Sure! Makes sense that you’d want to wear it for the festival,” you said. “Now, your total is fifteen shen.”

They reached into their pocket to pull out their wallet and passed you a few coins. You tucked them smoothly away. “I can put it in your hair for you, if you’d like,” you added. They stared at you, yellow eyes going wide. “Only if you’d like! Some people just have a difficult time getting the clip into their hair on their own- but you can also just borrow a mirror if you would like.”

“No, I would appreciate the help,” they said. You gestured for them to turn and they did so, crouching down to allow you to reach. They were tall, so that was another suggestion they were related to a dragon. Then again, you had some gnomish blood, so most everyone was taller than you.

You gathered the silky strands of their hair into your hand and settled the clip in place. They twitched a little under your touch and their tail shuddered when you took an extra moment to stroke a few strands of hair back into place.

“There. Does it look all right to you?” you asked, offering them a mirror that was angled so they could see the back of their head. They nodded and brushed off their front as they stood.

“Thank you for the help,” they said. “And your work is quite lovely. I hope you’re finding success here.”

“That’s very kind of you,” you said. “Ah, here, take this as well!” You reached down and grabbed a small, though still pretty, tail cuff. It was designed to clip into place, with an adjustable band to keep it from slipping down the tail. You pressed it into their hands.

The feathers on their tail and ears fluffed up in surprise. “Oh- but I didn’t pay for-”

“The Avieras Festival is for celebrating feathered creatures,” you said, pressing the tail cuff on them more insistently. “Think of it as a party favor. And you’ve been quite sweet, I think you deserve it.”

Their eyes went wide and they took the tail cuff like it was a holy artifact. “Thank you,” they said. They smiled, showing off their pearly white canines. “You really are a sweet thing, aren’t you?”

With that, they reached out, affectionately patted my cheek, then headed off into the crowd. You blinked after them. You had been pretty sure you were flustering them for a moment there, so it was a bit strange to have the entire thing turned around on you. Fortunately, another customer arrived in a moment and you could launch straight back into your customer service mode.

The pace of sales picked up throughout the night. You sold out quicker than you’d anticipated, with plenty of time to enjoy the festival. You packed away your belongings in your bag and headed out to explore.

It was late evening as you headed out into the main section of the festival. The town center was full of people dressed in feathered outfits. The Avieras Festival was a celebration of avians- typically, that meant people with some kind of bird relation, like harpies, but it technically included all kinds of feathered creatures. That meant that everyone was dressed in feathers. Some people had more elaborate outfits than others, with multicolored feathers and even bird masks, but most people were just wearing feather accessories. Harpies and other flying creatures soared through the sky in an impressive array of aerial dancing. Music floated through the air with them, bright and lively.

Exploring the festival involved you getting as much unique food as you could and shoving it all in your mouth while you examined the items for sale. There were several games set up along the streets. One of them was a modified version of flight chicken, where two contestants were suspended by magic and then dropped toward the (magically cushioned) ground. The goal was to pin your opponent underneath you before you hit the ground. While most people participating seemed pretty poor at it, the matches that involved experienced partners were fascinating. There were a couple other games that were usually played in the air that had been modified so everyone could enjoy them, plus some other games that could by played just as easily by people on the ground. You tried a couple of rounds of a game like ring toss, which involved getting a wooden circle to land around a peg from several feet up, and won a tiny, simple wooden bird. You probably could have bought it for less than you’d paid to play the game, but willing it made the experience better.

After playing a few more games, you wandered over to the art installation that covered the far side of the festival. It was meant to cover the multiple traditional forms of art from different harpy flocks, from fashion to paintings, and there were even a few sphinx artifacts. A large platform toward the middle of the installation held a rotating cast of musicians and dancers. You paused to watch a group of harpies weave in and around each other, smoothly moving from dancing on the ground to in the air. A sphinx passed by, flexing her wings in time to the music. You even caught sight of what was probably an aasimar, gold-skinned and faintly glowing, examining a flight cape.

By the time you finished the art exhibit, it was getting late. Several of the games and activities made for children had packed up, and the party had shifted to more of a late-night-club vibe. Pulsing lights lined the buildings, casting a multicolored glow across the scene. It was pretty, and you did consider staying for a bit longer, but you were already exhausted from selling and walking around. As a large portion of the townspeople headed out to continue the party, you headed back to your home.

The streets got clearer the further you headed away from the festivities, though there were still pockets of people. Some of them were rather drunk. Just as you turned a corner, a group of stumbling drunks bowled into you, practically trampling you as you fell to the ground.

“Hey!” you protested, but your voice wasn’t that loud thanks to your surprise. Two of them, the taller two of the bunch, barely seemed to notice you. The third one turned and gave you an apologetic wave before being dragged off.

You cursed to yourself as you got up. Parties always brought out the asshole drunks- admittedly, you were on the small side (curse that gnomish blood) and the lighting wasn’t good here, so it was possible that they hadn’t seen you. But they still could have at least paused when they hit you!

“Oh dear,” someone murmured, and you heard rapidly approaching footsteps. Someone crouched and a slender, pale hand entered your field of vision. “Are you all right? Can you get up?”

“I’m fine,” you groused, taking their hand so they could tug you up. “Not hurt or anything- ow.” You put weight on your left leg and it throbbed. Probably not broken or even sprained, but there was going to be a very nasty bruise in the morning.

“I beg to differ,” your helper said, and you finally looked at them properly. To your surprise, you knew who they were. Their hair clip and tail clip were still secured neatly in place, right where they’d been place when they’d bought them. “You’re bleeding.”

“What?” You lifted one of your hands to brush the dirt off your shirt and paused when you saw the oozing scratches along your palms. There were little bits of grit in the cuts. You winced. “Ow. Damn.”

“You should get those cleaned out,” they said. “Here, there’s a water pump nearby.” They took you gently by your wrist and led you a few feet away to a public water pump. They withdrew a pack of tissues from their side pouch and wet them before turning back to you. “Let me see your hands.”

You extended your hands out, palms up. They gave you a grateful smile and started swiping the wet tissues over the cuts.

It stung, of course, and you sucked in a sharp breath. They crooned in their throat, a gentle shushing noise. “I know it hurts, I just need to get all that gunk out.” Their thumb traced your wrist, stroking over the pulse point. You swallowed.

They took a few moments to clean it out, then paused, tilting your hand back and forth to make sure the dirt is gone. “There we are,” they murmured. “I don’t have any bandages on me, I’m afraid.”

“It’s really not necessary,” you said. “They’re just small scratches. See, they’re hardly even bleeding anymore.” You held your hand out- the cuts were still red, but no longer bleeding. They looked them over carefully, their tail swaying slightly as they focused.

“And nothing else hurts?” they asked. “You’re feeling okay otherwise?”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m fine. It’s not a problem.”

They nodded, then looked around you to glare in the direction the tramplers had gone. “Hmph. Shame that festivals can bring out the worst in people. They didn’t even bother to stop.”

“No, but I’m fine, really,” you said.

They flicked their tail with a ruffle of feathers. “Yes, but you if you haven’t been…” They shook their head. “Ah, well. I suppose we should just be grateful it wasn’t worse.” They slipped their hand under your chin with a feather-light touch and tilted your head back and forth. “And at least there’s no damage to your cute face, hm?”

A warm flush rolled over your entire body. Their tone was lightly teasing, but still quite sweet, and it wasn’t like you were used to receiving flirtation like that. You stepped back, pulling your chin from their grasp in embarrassment. “I- uh. Th- thank you.”

They hummed pleasantly. “Of course. No problem.” They gave you another look over, their brows furrowing. “Ah… would you mind if I walked you home? I don’t mean to be pushy, but I do want to make sure you’re safe.”

“I think I’ll be fine,” you said, taking a step forward. One of your ankles throbbed, but it held your weight.

They looked unconvinced. “You’re favoring your left ankle. Are you certain you’re all right?”

“Probably,” you said. “It hurts, but my home’s only a couple of blocks from here. I can manage.”

They frowned. Their tail swayed back and forth. “At least let me walk with you? I just don’t want you collapsing as soon as you’re out of sight. It will give me some comfort.”

“If you insist,” you said, offering them a weak smile. They seemed genuinely worried about you, and in all honestly, you weren’t totally sure how well you could walk anyway.

They stayed by your side as you headed toward your house. A couple of times, they needed to reach out and steady you when you forgot your ankle was bad and put your weight on it. The insistent throbbing pain got worse every few steps, and by the time you were within a few feet of your home, you were practically dragging your leg behind you. Your eyes watered with the pain.

Your companion put a hand to your shoulder, encouraging you to lean against them. “Are you certain you shouldn’t see a healer?” they asked. “You look like you’re about to collapse.”

“If it still feels bad tomorrow, I’ll see a healer. Right now, I just need to put it on ice and elevate it,” you said.

“If you’re sure,” they said. They paused, still looking at you with obvious worry, then their expression brightened. “Ah, let me give you this.” They rummaged in their pocket for a moment, then pulled out a small, shimmering disc. They took one of your hands in their own, turning it so your palm was facing upright, then pressed the small disc into your palm. Their hands completely covered yours. You could feel the disc against your palm, thin but surprisingly sturdy.

“What is it?” you asked as they withdraw their hands. You lifted the disc closer to your face to examine it. It was thin, strong, and pale colored. When you turned it in your hands, a pale stream of light illuminated it, turning it opalescent. Exactly like-

“It’s one of my scales,” they say. “If your ankle is worse tomorrow, you can just say my name to it and I’ll come to help you out.”

You blinked. “Really? But- are you sure?” Scales were strange things to give away. For the magically inclined, scales could be made to always be connected to their body, even when physically separated. If you said your name to the scale, they would know you were calling for them, no matter how far away you were.

They winked, golden eyes gleaming. “Say Tazriel, and I’ll come. I like making sure good people are well taken care of.” With no further explanation, they strolled off into the night. Their pale scales made them stand out against the gloom for a while before they finally faded into shadows.

You tucked the scale close to your chest as you hobbled the rest of the way home. It wasn’t far, and after resting for a few moments, you felt better. Though when you had to rummage through your freezer get the ice out, then stack your pillows to elevate your leg, then get comfortably settled in you seat only to realize you had to pee- well, maybe it would have been better to have a little help.

You fell asleep after some time of fitfully turning and shifting in your position. It was hard to find a comfortable sleeping spot with your ankle elevated. And apparently your sleeping body had no consideration for your health, because when you woke up, your ankle was no longer elevated, but twisted haphazardly under you. When you flexed it to get an idea of how fucked you were, pain rolled up your ankle and punched you in the gut. Okay. Pretty fucked.

It took a few tries to actually stand and hobble your way into the bathroom to really assess things. Your ankle was swollen and bruised and it hurt to put weight on it. Bad. You couldn’t assess whether or not it was broken, but it was sprained at a minimum. God dammit. You’d really wanted to avoid seeing a doctor. Maybe you could just give it time? If it healed on its own, everything would be fine, right? And if it didn’t get any better, then you could see a doctor. There was no reason to go to all the trouble when you hadn’t even given it a chance to heal. Right?

Part of you was aware that you were in denial and grasping at straws. A larger part of you was willing to accept anything that meant no doctor’s visit. So you hobbled your way back to bed, with a pit stop in the kitchen to stock up on food, and flopped back down, fully intending to stay in that spot all day.

As you did so, you saw something gleaming on the covers next to you. You scooped it up and- oh, right. The scale.

You rolled the little thing over in your fingers, enjoying how the light played off of its surface. It would be gorgeous to use on one of your projects- though they’d also probably be hard to get. Most people didn’t make a habit of handing out their scales, and even if you managed to find a seller, the quantity would be pretty small. Couldn’t be yanking out every one of your scales to sell, of course.

You rotated it in your hands, recalling their words from the night before. Say Tazriel and I’ll come. Interesting. That was a little unusual. People, as you’d already said, didn’t tend to go handing out their scales. On the other hand, they had seemed genuinely kindhearted and concerned, and you’d never heard a bad word about them. Though, to be fair, most of the words you heard about them tended to focus on how pretty they were. But still, people in this town were gossips, so if anyone had a problem with them, you were sure you’d have heard of it. But you’d also never heard of them handing out their scales like candy to anybody else. Bit of a mystery there.

After a few more moments of looking at the scale and considering, you turned and set it carefully on the table next to your bed. The offer was kind, but you were reluctant to drag anyone else into your mess. Maybe if it wasn’t feeling any better the next day, you would call them and ask for their help to get to the doctor.

You spent another boring day in bed, reading a couple of books and flipping through random videos on the scrynet. It was mind-numbing, and your hands were twitching by the end of it, but you didn’t really want to get out of bed. Eventually, you fell into a fitful, unrestful sleep.

When you woke, the pain in your ankle seemed to have dulled. Cocksure and overconfident, you swung out of bed, placed your feet on the floor, and collapsed when your bad ankle rolled under you and sent waves of pain up your leg.

Well. Crap. Had it somehow gotten worse overnight? How was that even possible? You blinked back the sting of tears from your eyes and twisted to look at it. Bruises still mottled the skin around the ankle, and it was definitely still swollen, though it wasn’t quite as bad as it had been the day before. You probed the skin with the tips of your fingers and hissed. Pain. Bad enough to make your stomach tighten. Once you were actually braced for the pain, you could put some weight on it, though it wasn’t fun.

Son of a bitch. You’d really been hoping it would get better. You considered your options as you limped to the kitchen to get something to eat. It wasn’t so bad to put weight on, you reasoned. It was painful, sure, but a little pain wasn’t so bad. You could handle it.

You sat down and examined your ankle once more. Like, okay. It was probably bad, and you should probably go to a doctor. But it wasn’t like you couldn’t walk at all. That would be the point where it got bad, right? If you couldn’t walk at all. You could still keep off it for a while, for the most part, and then it would heal up. Why go to the doctor if they were just going to tell you to rest your ankle, which is what you were already doing?

(Again, there was that part of you that recognized you were just making excuses and that you really should just go to a doctor. But the bigger part of you still wanted to avoid going, and that bigger part was winning out.)

You ate and dragged yourself back to your room, collapsing onto your bed. Okay. Another day in bed. That wasn’t so bad. And you could probably try to work at least a little. You sat down for most of it. That wouldn’t bother your ankle too much, right?

Just as you were making the firm decision that you were probably fine to work, a gleam of light on your night table caught your eye.

You shuffled a little closer and reached out. As your fingertips met the light, you felt something small and disc-like. The scale. You curled your fingers around it and brought it up to your face.

It was definitely glowing. The entire thing shone like it was reflecting a strong beam of sunlight. You squinted at it, rotating it back and forth. Weird. Did scales do that often? Did it mean something? You’d barely gotten any instructions on how it worked. Maybe you could do some scrying later, see if you could find anything on scales. Though you still weren’t completely sure of their species, which might make it harder. They were probably a feathered dragon, right? Harpies didn’t really have scales like this.

The scale gleamed, sending a beam of light directly into your eyes. You winced. Was it getting brighter? How were you supposed to make it stop? You ran your thumb over it a few times, hoping to maybe trigger something, but nothing happened. You grimaced. Whatever. You could figure it out later.

As you grabbed a couple books to stash the scale under, so that maybe it wouldn’t burn your eyes out while you were trying to sleep, your mind wandered back to what they’d said. Call their name… “Tazriel,” you muttered absently as you placed the books on top of the scale. That was how they’d said it, right? It was a pretty name. You still felt a little awkward about calling them, but maybe you could stop by once your ankle was feeling better and let them know you appreciated the gesture. Yeah, that seemed the best way to handle things.

The decision firm in your mind, you settled back into bed and tried to ignore your ankle so you could fall back asleep.

You were just about to fall back asleep when the sound of someone knocking on your front door made you open your eyes. It was a polite knock, not like someone was banging down your door for an emergency. Maybe it was a delivery driver. They’d leave the package eventually.

You closed your eyes again. Only to open them again when the knock sounded once more. It was a little more urgent this time, though still not what you would consider an emergency knock. You considered getting up, but if it was a visitor, they would eventually figure out you weren’t home or something. It was fine.

The silence lasted a little longer this time, so you were settled back comfortably by the time the knock sounded again. This time, it was distinctly louder and rushed. You gritted your teeth. Okay. This person was not taking a hint, which either meant they were really obtuse or they had something important for you. But getting to the door meant getting out of bed and you were awfully reluctant to do that. The silence stretched on as you debated the finer points of getting out of bed versus staying nice and comfy.

After a couple minutes of silence, you realized the person at your door hadn’t knocked again. They’d wandered off, presumably. That was good. You could just lie back and relax and they would come back later if they needed anything else.

And then you heard the click and creak of the doorknob turning and your door- your FRONT DOOR- opening.

The indignation was enough to get you out of bed. Common sense stopped you from getting further than the hallway. You had a busted ankle- what were you going to do against a (possibly armed) thief? At best, maybe you could look so pathetic, they’d feel bad and leave.

Then your name, called in a semi-frantic voice, floated down the hall. That was surprising. Why would someone who broke into your house be calling for you? You hobbled a few steps out into the main entranceway of your house and stopped in surprise.

You knew both of the people standing in front of your open door, one more familiar than the other. The more familiar figure was your neighbor, a twitchy, if also kindly, water elemental. The less familiar figure was your savior from the other night, Tazriel. Their face lit up at the sight of you. “You’re all right?”

You shifted your weight onto your good leg and positioned your bad ankle so the swelling was not as noticeable. “I’m fine. What are you doing in my house?”

Tazriel blanched. It was hard for scaled creatures to blush, but they seemed to be trying their level best. “You called me.”

You blinked. “I did?” Almost as soon as the words had left your mouth, you remembered sliding the scale away and mumbling ‘Tazriel’ a moment before your fingers actually broke contact. Oops. “Oh. I did.”

Tazriel seemed to be regaining their confidence. “I was worried, of course, so I came by, but you didn’t answer your door. Fortunately, your neighbor did, and she said she had a key, so…” They trailed off, looking toward your neighbor. You stare at her too. She awkwardly rubs one of her arms.

“They seemed really worried, and you did tell me to use your key in emergencies,” she mumbled. She cast a shy glance sideways at Tazriel and you did not roll your eyes, but it was a near thing. Okay, they were pretty good looking, but you weren’t pleased that your neighbor was such a sucker for a pretty face that she would let them into your house.

“They’re quite kind,” Tazriel said, smiling at your neighbor, and she practically turned into steam. “They were worried about you too, once I told them what was going on.”

“Right,” you said. “So what’s going on?”

Tazriel blinked at you like it should be obvious. “You called for me and then didn’t answer the door. I thought you were really hurt.”

Oh. Actually, that wasn’t a strange conclusion to come to. “W-well, that’s very kind of you, but I’m, uh. Actually doing fine. It was sort of an accident that I called you. I’m sorry for disturbing you. But you don’t need to stay.”

They gave you a critical look, gaze roving over your body and fixing on your ankle. You shuffled it further behind your good leg to avoid their look, but this seemed to backfire. Their gaze grew more concerned. “You’re not putting any weight on your ankle.”

“I am,” you said, and gingerly placed your bad ankle on the ground. You leaned on it until your eyes were watering with pain and hoped they weren’t paying too much attention. “I’m fine. You can go back to your life.”

They narrowed their eyes, but didn’t say anything. For a moment, you were certain they were actually going to take your advice and leave, but then your neighbor piped in with, “You’ve been holding yourself all stiff since we got here. You’re in a lot of pain, aren’t you?”

You shot her a glare as Tazriel gave you a new, more appraising look. “You are tense.” Their expression grew alarmed. “You shouldn’t be standing, should you?”

“I really have to assure you that I’m fine,” you said, but Tazriel and your neighbor were already dismissing your protests out of hand.

“Last time you told me you were fine, you had such bad food poisoning you could barely keep anything down,” your neighbor said. Tazriel brushed past the both of you and into the kitchen to fetch a chair. “I didn’t find out until two days later when I ran into you at the store looking like death warmed over.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” you muttered. “And what were you going to do about it? It was food poisoning. You just have to wait it out.”

“You could have asked me to check on you. I would have done it. Or you could have asked me to take you to a doctor.”

You grimaced. Tazriel set a chair down next to you and gestured for you to sit in it. Once you were down, they crouched and peered at your ankle. “Why didn’t you call me sooner?” they asked. “This looks bad.”

“It looks worse than it is,” you said hurriedly. “I really don’t need all this fuss. I’m just going to stay home until it feels better.”

Tazriel looked up. “You’re not going to see a doctor?”

“I don’t need one,” you said, trying to sound more confident than you felt.

“You do,” Tazriel insisted. They probed at your ankle with their fingertips and you nearly jumped out of your skin. “You can’t walk on this. And it must hurt a lot.” They looked up at you and you were surprised by exactly how much concern was evident in their eyes. Their feathered ears twitched. It was ridiculous how cute it was.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” you said, but their gaze was really hard to resist. “I just… I don’t want to go to the doctor.” Before they could comment on that, you braced a hand against the nearby wall and used the leverage to haul yourself to your feet. Well. To one of your feet. The other was still being held by Tazriel. “And they’ll just tell me to ice and rest it, which is what I’m already doing! Thank you all very much for your concern, but I think I’ll be heading back to doing that, so unless there’s anything else I can help you with…” You gave a pointed look to Tazriel. They were still holding your foot. They did not let go.

“You need a doctor,” they said, enunciating every word carefully, like you were a child or hard of hearing. “Your ankle could be broken.”

Your shoulders drooped a bit. “You don’t think it’s that bad, do you?”            “I don’t know,” Tazriel said. “I can’t say. Because I’m not a doctor. Which is why you need one.” They folded their feathered ears back against their head and fixed you with their brilliantly golden eyes. It wasn’t quite a puppy-dog look, though it was pleading. Come now, their expression seemed to say. I want you to be all right. Won’t you let me help you? Their thumb was also tracing circles on your calf, which was making it surprisingly hard to focus.

“It’s… I just…” Your protests died on your tongue. They were just looking at you, but it was making your head feel sort of funny. Were they using their prettiness to hypnotize you? Was that what this was? Weaponized prettiness?

“If you’re nervous about going to the doctor, I could go with you,” Tazriel suggested. Their feathered ears perked up and you cursed internally. Somehow, that made them even cuter. “I know a doctor, actually. I could take you to her, if you’d like.”

They were giving you a look. An eager look, like they were already proud of themselves for having solved the problem. But you also got the impression they were not leaving here taking ‘no’ for an answer. They were going to be leaving here with you on a trip to the doctor’s or you were going to have a new roommate.

“Eh… uh…” You tried to think of a way out of this. They’re pretty, your brain supplied unhelpfully. It’d be nice to spend more time with them. Your own mind was even turning against you. “I guess that’d be… okay.”

They beamed. The fact that they looked even prettier when they did that was like adding insult to injury. “Wonderful! I’ll need to call ahead to let her know we’re coming, but she owes me a favor, I’m sure she’ll set some time aside for you.” They scrambled to their feet and practically skipped outside. You and your neighbor watched them go.

“Lucky,” she said in an undertone.

“Lucky?” you muttered back. “For breaking my ankle?”

She rolled her eyes. “For having someone so worried about you. Do you realize how frantic they were when they were banging on my door? It was kind of sweet.”

You weren’t sure how to respond to that, so you didn’t. Tazriel stepped back into the room at that moment, sparing you the indignity. “She says we can come in whenever we want,” they said. “But we’ll have a better chance of getting in right away if we go as soon as possible.”

“Just give me a couple minutes,” you said. “I just… need to brush my teeth.” Ever since hurting your ankle, your self-care activities, otherwise known as basic hygiene, had kind of gone down the drain. No one had commented on it so far, but the longer you were in the presence of a water elemental and the perfectly polished Tazriel, the worse you felt about it.

You hobbled to the bathroom and did as quick of a spot clean as you could. Once you’d determined that it was as good as it was going to get in the time frame allowed, you pulled on some slightly-nicer clothes and headed back out to Tazriel.

Your neighbor was gone by that point, and Tazriel was waiting for you in the doorway. “Are you ready to go?” they asked, fixing you with a cheerful smile. You nodded.

“Yeah, yeah.” There was a part of your mind insisting that, despite the indignity of it, you could probably get away with slamming the door in their face and burying yourself under the blankets until everyone forgot about this doctor thing. But that would be hideously embarrassing and you weren’t sure it would stop Tazriel anyway. They seemed rather determined. “Let’s get this over with.”

Tazriel nodded cheerily, then took a step forward, holding their arms out awkwardly. You took a fumbling step back, hands up. “Hey, woah, what are you doing?”

They paused. “You can hardly walk,” they said, as though that were completely obvious. “But I can.”

You did not lower your arms from their defensive position. “You’re going to carry me?”

They looked like at you like it was a perfectly normal thing to do. “Yes, of course. I can handle it.”

“Uh,” you said, looking them up and down uncertainly. “You’re sure?”

“Of course,” they said. To their credit, they sounded extremely confident. “You’re rather small, aren’t you? I can carry you.”

You felt weirdly embarrassed about being referred to as ‘small.’ “Uh. Well.” Why wasn’t your brain working? You couldn’t string together any thoughts! “I guess, if you’re okay with it…”

They grinned and scooped you up like you were a couple of grapes. You looped your arms around their neck. It was impressive how effortless the lift seemed to them. “Comfortable?” they asked. You made a nondescript sound that roughly meant, ‘as comfortable as it is possible to be right now.’ Apparently, they could interpret that, because they took off at a slow jog.

You’d been expecting they would take one of the trains, but they ended up heading in a completely different direction than the local station. It was slightly unnerving, but they seemed to know what they were doing. You did your best to relax back into their arms. While you usually felt rather uncomfortable about having someone carry you, this felt somehow reassuring. Maybe because they were strong enough that there was no wavering of their grip or unsteadiness.

They jogged for a little while, turning down some of the main roads. People looked at the sight with some interest, though few people actively stared, which you appreciated. After turning around a few corners, they slowed down and approached a decently large building painted in white and pink. They shifted you in their arms a bit before pulling open the glass door.

It definitely smelled like a doctor’s clinic when you stepped inside, with that stinging scent of antiseptic. A few other people were milling around the room. You couldn’t get a good look at most of them, but there was someone standing in a pile of feathers in the corner. You resisted the urge to snicker. There was always someone who took a feather-enhancing potion during the Avieras Festival and then had to deal with the consequences a few days later.

Tazriel ignored the front desk and headed toward the exam area. They nudged the door open with their tail and glanced around as they stepped inside. “Doctor Gella?”

There was a moment of silence, then a middle-aged woman wearing thick spectacles poked her head out of a room a few doors down. She had an enormous set of ram’s horns sprouting from her temples and a thin tail tipped with a trident. Oh, and bright yellow skin.

“Tazriel,” she said, nodding at them. “I assume this is the patient.” She gave you a sympathetic smile. “Why don’t you step into an exam room and put them down?”

The exam room was pretty standard doctor fare- a sink and a few cabinets, a machine for checking blood pressure, a couple of uncomfortable-looking chairs up against the far wall, and a bulky exam table covered in paper taking up a majority of the space. Tazriel set you down upon it and took up one of the seats. Dr. Gella gave them a pointed look. “It was kind of them to bring you here, Tazriel, but I’m afraid I can’t let you stay in the exam room while they’re being examined. Unless you would feel more comfortable if Taz stayed?” She directed the last question toward you.

“I think I can handle it on my own,” you said. Ever since you’d started smelling the antiseptic, your heart rate had picked up, and sitting on the crinkly exam table wasn’t doing it any favors. Why did doctor’s offices all have to look the same? But you’d been through this before. You didn’t need anyone to hold your hand. Tazriel nodded amiably and headed for the door.

“I’ll be in the waiting room,” they said. They gave you an amiable wink, then the door closed behind them.

The room felt a lot more confining all of a sudden.

Dr. Gella rolled a wheeled chair up to the edge of the exam table. “They’re quite sweet, but they forget the most obvious things sometimes. One of the reasons they could never work here.”

“Did they want to?”

“They were interested in one point. That’s how we got to know each other- they volunteered here when they were younger. But, as I’ve said, they’re a bit too distracted to be an attentive healer. Their knowledge of anatomy is impeccable, though. Hence why they ended up being a butcher.” Dr. Gella looked at your legs. “Ah. I see that’s the bum ankle they mentioned?”

You shifted, embarrassed. “Yeah. They told me I needed to come here, but…” You trailed off. Dr. Gella gave a half-smile.

“Not a fan of the doctor’s?” she asked. You shook your head. “That’s all right. Plenty of people aren’t. I’ll try to be as gentle as I can.”

She shifted your leg up onto the exam table and slipped off your shoe and sock. The shoe was easy, since your ankle was swollen enough that it didn’t go on all the way. The sock was a little harder, and no matter how gentle she tried to be, it still hurt. You gritted your teeth and struggled as hard as you could not to kick her.

“There we go,” she said, setting your sock next to you. “Hm.” She grimaced. “I can see why they wanted you to come in.”

“I didn’t think it was that bad,” you said, a little sheepish. Dr. Gella hummed disapprovingly.

“It’s definitely a bad sprain, at minimum. How long ago did you injure it?”

“Couple of days?” you said, shrinking back a little more sheepishly when Dr. Gella frowned.

“It might not have been that bad at first, but it’s certainly become worse thanks to not treating it right. I’m going to have to get a brace for it, and you’ll have to stay off it for a few weeks at least.” Her eyes glowed, suggesting she was using some kind of seeing-through spell. “Yes, it doesn’t look like there’s anything broken, but it’s certainly bruised and damaged and walking on it will make it worse.”

“Do I have to wear a cast?” you asked, hesitant.

“It’ll be a soft cast,” Dr. Gella said. You grimaced. “That bothers you?”

“I just… don’t like it.” You shifted in place, wincing when that shifted your ankle. “It bothers me.”

Dr. Gella smiled sympathetically. “If you don’t want to wear the cast, I’m certainly not going to make you do so. But it is my medical recommendation that you do so, as it will make sure that things heal better.”

You didn’t say anything. Yes, you needed to wear the cast. Yes, the idea of doing so made you feel sick to your stomach. You weren’t sure how to reconcile those emotions. Dr. Gella watched your expression, taking in your uncertainty, then forced a small smile.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I have another patient that shouldn’t take too long. You can take some time to think it over. If you’re too uncomfortable for it, then I can just give you some instructions for taking care of it, and if you feel better about the cast, we can put it on after I’m done with that patient. Sound good?”

You let out a relieved breath. At the very least, it got you out of the exam room so you could take a breather. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Certainly. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” Dr. Gella helped you out of the room and offered you a set of crutches. Together, you hobbled back to the waiting room.

Tazriel was waiting in a seat close to the door when you stepped out. You nodded to Dr. Gella and went to sit next to them as she called in her next patient. Tazriel tilted their head, taking in your crutches and swollen ankle. “Are you done?”

“I’m not,” you said. “It’s… I’m…” You fumbled over your next words. Tazriel waited patiently. “Ugh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. Dr. Gella was right, I don’t have to know. It’s your health,” Tazriel said. “I can leave now, if you want me too, and as long as you have a way home-”

“You don’t have to leave,” you said. Talking to them was at least a distraction from both the throbbing pain in your ankle and the swirling anxiety in your chest. “I don’t like doctor’s offices.”

Tazriel nodded. “I sort of guessed. From the way you were acting about having to go.” They hesitated. “I know I probably overstepped, bringing you here, but you really did need someone to see to that ankle.”

“Yeah, you were right. I actually do need a cast on this thing.” You shifted your ankle and immediately winced. Bad idea. “But I can’t… bring myself to get one.”

Tazriel was silent for a moment, until it was clear you weren’t going to say more. “What bothers you about it?”

You hesitated. “When I was a kid, I screwed up my arm. It was a pretty bad break, from what I remember. And they put a cast on it. I complained about the cast a lot. It was tight and itchy and I didn’t like wearing it at all.”

Tazriel nodded. “Most people don’t.”

“And then, like a week and a half into wearing the cast, it started to hurt. Really badly. I complained about it, but I’d already been complaining about it so much, everyone thought I was just continuing with that. It kept getting worse, but it took another week before anyone believed me enough to take my back to the doctor. And then the doctor was really dismissive when we did go in, so it was a few more days before my parents finally got anyone to pay attention to what was actually happening.” You took a deep breath. “The cast was too tight. And there was some damage to my hand by the time they figured it out and took it off.”

Tazriel blinked, recoiling a little. You saw them sneak a glance at your hand, subtly trying to see what was wrong without being too obvious about it. “The damage wasn’t permanent, thankfully,” you said, stretching out your arm to show them. “There’s a little scar here, but after physical therapy, I can move my hand pretty much the same as anyone else. There’s a little residual pain, on occasion, but it healed well.”

“That’s why you were so fussy about going to the doctor,” Tazriel said. “You didn’t want another cast.” They curled their tail across their lap. “I… I’m sorry for dragging you here.”

“Ah, it’s not your fault,” you said. “You were right. I did need to go. And I wasn’t going to do it unless someone kicked my ass.” You glanced at the door to the exam rooms. “The doctor said I could go without a cast, if I was really uncomfortable having one on, but I really do need one. I don’t want to screw up my ankle any worse than it already is.”

Tazriel sat for a moment, their tail settled across their lap. They were plucking at their feathers. A little further up their tail was the tail band you’d given to them. It had clearly been taking off and cleaned at one point, maybe even polished because it was even shinier than when you’d had it. “You’re still wearing that,” you said. Tazriel glanced toward the band and gave a faint smile.

“Oh, yes. It’s quite beautiful. I appreciate it.” They ran their finger over it, relishing the little textural differences. “I truly wasn’t expecting a gift.”

You laughed, a little embarrassed by how warm their voice had become. “I’m sure people trip all over themselves to give you free samples. You must be swimming in them by now.”

“Sometimes,” they admitted with a sheepish grin. “I try not to accept them too often. I don’t like to take things without paying for them. It feels unfair.”

You nudged their side playfully. “Except when you’re taking from me, huh? Trying to drive me out of business?”

Their face scrunched up in a strange way. “Eh… well…” They ran their hands up and down their tail. “I had… I had a bit of an idea about that. I was hoping perhaps I could offer to pay you back… by taking you out to dinner.”

You thought for a moment. “You wanted to ask me out to dinner?” They nodded. “Why dinner?”

They blinked, like they hadn’t thought that question would be the next one. “It wouldn’t have to be dinner, I suppose. That’s just traditional. But if you didn’t want dinner, I suppose coffee would work as well? Or if there’s something else you’d like to do?”

Your brain chugged for a moment before everything clicked together. They were asking you on a date. Right? Or maybe you were reading them wrong? You’d never been good with those sort of subtleties- maybe they meant something else? Like a friendly dinner? But if you interpreted it as a friendly dinner and they didn’t, then they would be hurt if you treated it like a friendly date, right? But if you tried to clarify and they weren’t asking you on a date, that would be so embarrassing, and maybe they’d be mad at you for being presumptuous about them asking you out…            You were so lost in your thoughts that you didn’t realize you were staring at them until Tazriel cleared their throat. “Er. I- You don’t have to say yes. I thought it might be charming, I suppose? But I suppose it is a little too pushy, so don’t feel obligated to-”

“No, no! I want to!” you said hurriedly. You couldn’t just sit there and let them feel bad! Although, now you were going to have to find a way to determine if this was a date or not without letting them know that you weren’t sure what you’d signed up for.

It seemed like answering in the affirmative was the correct choice, because their entire face brightened. “Really? Ah, that’s a relief. I’m afraid I’m not all that good with these sort of things- people assume I am, I think, but I’m really not used to it at all.” They gave you a particularly rough pat on the shoulder, which jostled you enough to make your ankle ache. You grimaced and they pulled their hands back, tucking them against their body. “Sorry. We can, uh. Hold off on the dinner until you’re feeling better.”

“Yeah,” you muttered. “I… suppose I should get the cast. To make sure that everything heals all right.”

They looked uncertain. “Are you going to be okay with that?”

“It’ll be scary, but I’m a grown-up. I can handle it.” Despite your words, your stomach churned. It wasn’t even going to be a hard cast, like the one you’d had as a kid, but the idea of something pressing in tight, restricting you like that… how were you going to sit through the procedure and just deal with it?

An impulse darted from your brain to the tip of your tongue before you could think better of it. “Will you sit with me when I get the cast on?”

Tazriel’s ears fluffed up and their eyes went wide. It was hard to tell if they were surprised or pleased to be asked. Or both. “You want me to go in with you?” Their tail gave one large wag before they settled it back into their lap. “I don’t know if I’m allowed.”

“If I say you can be in there, then you can be in there,” you said. “I’d just like someone else in there with me in case I, like. Freak out or something.”

They looked at you for a long moment and you were just about to rescind the offer out of embarrassment when they nodded. “Of course. I don’t mind at all.”

Their agreement couldn’t have come at a better time, because the exam room door swung open again and Dr. Gella stepped out. “There you are,” she said, nodding in your direction. “Have you made up your mind?”

You nodded. “I’d like Tazriel to come back with me. Just as, uh. Moral support. If that’s all right.”

Dr. Gella looked between the two of you with slightly raised eyebrows, but all she said was, “There’s some paperwork you’ll have to sign, but I don’ t think there will be any problem with it.”

Tazriel gave a single squeeze to your shoulder and followed you and Dr. Gella back to the proper exam room. You hopped back up on the table and signed a few forms Dr. Gella provided for you while Tazriel hovered a bit awkwardly nearby. “Now, I’m going to set your leg in place with magic and form the cast around it,” Dr. Gella said as soon as the paperwork was safely stored away. “That will make the most comfortable and best-fitting cast. But you’re going to have to try and not move.”

“I can try,” you said. The phantom sensation of being held in a vice grip, unable to pull your leg away even as it was clamped down on tighter and tighter and tighter hit you and you took an unsteady, gulping breath.

Tazriel moved closer so their shoulder was brushing against yours. Even with the high examination table, they had to bend over a bit. “Where were you thinking of going for dinner?”

“F-for dinner?” you said, distracted. Dr. Gella carefully worked a disinfectant and cleaning spell over your ankle, causing a race of cold tingles over your skin. The magic sparked and seemed to solidify as she shifted the magic to start holding your leg still.

“Hey.” Tazriel’s voice dropped a little, adopting a soothing register. “Don’t focus on that, okay? Look at me.”

You turned your head to catch Tazriel’s golden eyes. They beamed. “There you go! Now, I asked you about dinner, remember?” Their face took on a thoughtful expression. “Oh, but you weren’t sure about dinner, were you? I’m happy to go with whatever you’d like.”

“U-um.” The grip around your ankle was tightening, enough to put pressure on the swelling. It ached awfully. “I- I guess… lunch would be fine?” Dinner was too fancy, right? Getting lunch seemed much more low-key. Though, if they were asking you on a proper date, dinner would be more traditional, right?

“Lunch works,” Tazriel said amiably. “Anywhere in particular you want to go?”

“I’m not sure.” You hazarded a glance at your ankle, but before you could get a proper look at it, Tazriel was calling your attention back.

“There’s a cute little bistro near my workplace. If you have no objections, we could go there. Have you ever been? I don’t remember the name, but it’s a pale green building with ivy crawling up the side.”

“I think I’ve seen that,” you said. The grip around your ankle had stopped tightening, but the pressure was still there. You couldn’t flex it at all. Your head thundered erratically. “It looks nice. I’ve never been there.”

“I’ve only been there once, for breakfast, but they had quite a good egg sandwich.” Your gaze started to wander back toward your leg and Tazriel squeezed your hand, drawing your attention back to them. “But they’ve got a lot of variety, so I’m sure you can find something you’ll like there.”

“Uh huh,” you murmured, still distracted. The magic was solidifying into a soft cast, molding itself to the shape of your leg. There wasn’t much pain, but the feeling was still unsettling.

Tazriel licked their lips, their tail flicking rapidly. “Ah, um… Maybe you could talk about how you made this?” They swung their tail around to show off the clip still set against their scales. “It’s lovely. I was very surprised you were willing to give it to me.”

“Well, it is good business practice to make sure customers come back,” you said. “And you were a nice customer.” And maybe the fact that they were cute hadn’t hurt either. Had you actually been flirting with them without realizing it? Well, you weren’t that good at flirting when you were trying at it. Maybe flirting while you weren’t trying made you better at it. It had gotten you a maybe-date, hadn’t it?

“There we are.” Dr. Gella stepped back to examine her handiwork. “Well done. It’s all set.”

You looked down at your leg. It was booted up in a deep blue material, making one of your legs significantly heavier and more awkward than the other. You could move your leg with a decent amount of effort, but you couldn’t really flex your ankle. Gingerly, you slid off the table. Tazriel caught your arm immediately, letting you lean against their body.

“Careful,” Dr. Gella said. You couldn’t tell whether she was talking to you or Tazriel. “Your ankle’s still going to be fragile, so I’d suggest using crutches and keeping as much weight off of it as possible. I’ll write you a script for some pain medication. Take it easy for at least two weeks, then come back in and we can reassess.

“I will,” you said. “Thank you for all your help.”

She waved it off. “Of course. I’m always ready to help Tazriel’s friends.”

“Let me walk you back to your house,” Tazriel said. “Just to make sure you get back okay and have everything you need.” Their tail swayed back and forth eagerly. “And you still have my scale, right? You can call me if it gets worse or you need anything.”

Dr. Gella made a noise of surprise. “A scale, Tazriel? Really?” They paused, looking at her like they’d forgotten she was in the room. “I thought those were important to feathered dragons.”

That answered one of your questions. “I’ve never met a feathered dragon before,” you said, giving Tazriel a surprised look. They rubbed the back of their neck.

“I’m only three quarters- My grandma married a harpy. I’ve got a few more feathers than most feathered dragons.” They swayed their plumed tail back and forth, displaying the pretty feathers there. “And most modern dragons don’t hold to that old notion of scales being given to- you know. It’s convenient.”

“A seerstone is more convenient,” Dr. Gella said. You looked between them, feeling like you’d missed something important.

“What old notion?” you asked. Tazriel shook their head at Dr. Gella, who continued speaking as if she hadn’t seen them at all.

“It was an old tradition for dragons to give out scales to people they were interested in establishing a courtship with,” she said. Tazriel dropped their face into their hands. Their tail drooped to hit the ground with a dull thump. “Admittedly, courtship has fallen out of fashion, so it’s not quite as common anymore, but plenty of dragons still hold to the-”

“Okay, I think maybe you need to go home and rest,” Tazriel said, popping up from their hands and speaking much louder than was necessary for such a small room. They scooped you up over their shoulder with one arm and grabbed the crutches Dr. Gella had for you with the other.

“Be careful,” Dr. Gella said. “You don’t want to jostle their-”

“I’m always very careful,” Tazriel said in their too-loud voice. “I’ll see you another time, thank you.”

You awkwardly propped your head up from where it was hanging down Tazriel’s back. “Thank you, Dr. Gella.”

“Of course. If you need anything else, please give me a call. Just ask Tazriel for my contact information,” she said. Then Tazriel left the room and the door swung shut behind you.

You let yourself lay limply over their shoulder, ignoring the bewildered stares as you walked through the waiting room. Once you were outside and Tazriel’s embarrassed walk had slowed, you picked your head up again. “Perhaps you could give me an opportunity to walk on my own?”

Tazriel stuttered to a stop. “Oh. Yes.” They moved to the shadow of a building and carefully put you down so you could lean against the wall while they put the crutches down. “I shouldn’t have picked you up like that, I was just…” They trailed off.

“It’s fine,” you said, deciding to be polite and not call attention back to their embarrassment. Then you had a question and decided to do it anyway. “Um. So, the thing with the scale…” Tazriel immediately looked like they were considering making a run for it. “It would have been more convenient to use a seerstone, wouldn’t it? Why did you pick the scale?”

Tazriel really looked like they were hoping the ground would swallow them up, but, to their credit, they stood there and answered. “It.... isn’t used as a way to start courting anymore, but… there are certain connotations to it and there are a lot of old legends and…” They cleared their throat and stared firmly at the ground. “I was planning on asking you out. I just hadn’t quite plucked up the courage yet. The scale was more spur of the moment than anything. I didn’t want to ask you out in that moment, not when you were hurt, so I picked something that was similar, but not something you would recognize. I hoped it would maybe help me feel braver next time I saw you. And I suppose I thought maybe the scale would make it more likely for you to call me than just connecting with a seerstone.”

Well. That answered your other question. It was a date. A pleasant prickling sensation rolled through your chest. “I- I thought it was sweet,” you said, partially because it was true and partially so Tazriel didn’t look so painfully shy anymore. They smiled at that.

“Let’s get you home. And connect seerstones so we can actually plan everything out for our lunch.” Tazriel helped you get set up with the crutches and you began your slow journey back to your house.

It took a while to get back to your home, but Tazriel was a pleasant conversationalist. In fact, you were almost disappointed when they stopped at your front door.

“I’ll see you again,” they said. “Get some rest. If you need anything else, I’m available. By scale or seerstone.”

“I’ll call. I promise,” you said. “Thank you for everything.” You carefully balanced yourself on your crutches and reached one of your arms up toward them. They obligingly leaned closer. You took their face in your palm and tugged them in close for just long enough to press a kiss to their cheek.

They didn’t make a sound, but their tail and ear feathers fluffed up. “I’ll call you,” you said. They nodded rapidly. Grinning, you stepped back into your house. You needed to rest up your leg. Once you were healed, you had a date to go on.

[steppingstonesuniverseguide]

Deleted Scene from One Step At a Time Ch 36: The Curator

I'm going to be posting a One Step At a Time entry soonish and I'm deleting a bunch of things because it got very *silly* and kind of interfered with the whole *vibe* of the chapter. That being said, I do love the silly, so enjoy an exclusive Ch 36.0 from One Step At a Time.

(Also Techno does say a thing that's might come off as way too rude, but, like, Wilbur doesn't mind. He watched his dad mourn him for years. He knows he's wanted and both he and Techno are 100% aware of this.)

“We are we going?” Tommy asked for the 5th time in as many minutes. This trip was always too long even without a Tommy in the car.

"We already told you,” Wilbur said, sounding grumpy. (Probably because he’d been demoted to backseat. Usually, they’d make Phil sit in the back during civilian outings in revenge for all of the years they had to allow him to drive, but Tubbo was also sitting in the back seat and putting Phil back there seemed like a poor decision.) “We’re going to the library.”

“We are not going to the library,” Tommy said. “All three of you brought your costumes and you brought us masks.” He reached forward to poke Phil. “Phil where are we going.”

"We’re going to the library, mate,” Phil said with more patience than the child deserved today. “It’s just a special library.”

“Is it a crime library?”

“It’s a…” Phil said.

“Yes. It’s a crime library,” Wilbur cut in.

“Technically, it does house books considered illegal in current society,” Phil said.

“Like Animal Farm and The Lorax,” Techno contributed.

“What is a Lorax?” Tommy asked.

“We’ll check it out for you,” Techno said.

“Will you read it to me?”

“I promise you can read The Lorax yourself well enough at this point, but I will read Animal Farm to you if you’d like.”

“Anti-government bedtime story with Techno hour is starting up again.”

“Eventually we’ll get to The Communist Manifesto and What is Property?”

“God please, I don’t want to hear any more about 1800s relationship drama between Marx and Proudhon. This is all your fault.” Techno didn’t see it since he was driving but considering that Tommy make a squeaking sound and having sat in the backseat with Wilbur himself plenty times, he assumed Tommy had just been elbowed in the ribs.

He then heard various slapping sounds.

“Boys, please stop fighting,” Phil said.

“He started it,” Wilbur claimed which was not exactly true, but also Tommy had been being annoying for the entire car trip.

“I didn’t start shit. I just asked a normal fucking question about where we were going.”

“You-”

“Tubbo is sitting in the front on the way back,” Techno said just to Phil. “There is no other option at this point. We have to have an adult sit between them.”

“I’m older than you!” Wilbur declared, too close to Techno’s ear. Luckily, they were at a stoplight and Techno could reach back blindly to shove his head back into the backseat where it belonged.

“Phil,” Techno said. “explain to me again why you made him.”

“Tech-”

“Oh, that’s right,” Techno said, glancing into the backseat. “You were an accident.”

“Unlike you,” Wilbur said, “who he consciously decided to adopt as his itty bitty baby child.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you!”

“Boys do I need to turn this car around?”

“How?” Techno and Wilbur said as one.

“This is why we don’t go on road trips anymore,” Phil sighed.

“Yes,” Techno said.

“Exactly,” Wilbur agreed.

“Also, he almost drove us off the Grand Canyon.”

“That too.”

Phil just rolled his eyes and turned to look out of the window.

“Okay, but are we almost there yet,” Tommy asked.

Wilbur groaned. “You’re such a child.”

“I’ve never been on a car ride this long,” Tommy complained. Which… now that Techno thought about it was a good point. They probably should have thought of that before putting him in the car.

“Tubbo’s fine.”

“Tubbo’s been asleep for an hour.”

“We’re almost there,” Techno said. “10 minutes.” Well, it was about 10 minutes to the entrance of the library, but he thought Tommy would probably be entranced by that.

[bullet-prooflove]

Anyone up for NSFW Alphabet?

Dirty A-Z headcanon game

Send a letter for more information on my muse’s likes and dislikes! Inspired by kinks discussed around the internet. The (explanations) are mere guidelines, feel free to elaborate as much as you’d like!

A - Alone time (how do they get off when they’re all by themselves? do they watch porn, is it all in their imagination, do they jerk off, do they use toys?) 

B - Bondage (do they like it? do they not? do they prefer to be the one being tied or the one doing the tying?) 

C - Crying (is it a turn on? a turn off? do they cry during sex? have they cried during sex? what was the reason?) 

D - Dominance (do they prefer to dominate, or be dominated? do they have experience as a Dom? Do they have a Dom that they trust already? What kind of things do they enjoy as/with their Dominant partner?) 

E - Extra info (any other fetishes? feet? leather? role playing? blood? fantasies that they might want to experience not on this list?)

F - Food play (do they like using food in the bedroom? are there any foods they prefer to use during sex or foreplay? any they’d like to try?)

G - Group sex (would they have a threeway? four? an orgy? do they put on a show for spectators? or do they like to keep it just between them and their partner?) 

H - Humiliation (does degradation and insults get them hot? do they get off on humiliating someone else? what kind of humiliation is good for them?) 

I - Impact play (here’s where talking about things like spanking, paddles, canes, floggers and the like.) 

J - Jelly (what kind of lube are they using? is it flavored? have they tasted it? do they prefer to use something other than real lube during sex?) 

K - Kissing (what parts of their body do they like having kissed? what parts of their partner do they enjoy kissing? do they like leaving marks / having marks left on them?) 

L - Lighting (are the lights on? off? do they have some kind of mood lighting set up?) 

M - Masochism (do they like pain? scratching? biting? being bossed around? spoken down to? choked?) 

N - Not yet (orgasm delay? orgasm denial? do they tell their partner not to touch themselves for a certain amount of time or under certain circumstances? do they delay or deny other things like bathroom usage or food? do they need to beg first? do they like being denied / delayed?) 

O - Outdoor sex (have they ever done it in public? would they? where?)

P - Photography (are cameras allowed in the bedroom? do they send nudes? do they ask for nudes? would they ever record themselves having sex / being caught up in a sexual act?) 

Q - Quiet please (what’s the volume like in the bedroom? are they quiet? do they scream? do they like a loud partner? do they prefer if their partner is more soft spoken?)

R - Routine (do they have a routine when it comes to picking up one night stands? do they have scheduled sex with their partner? are things spontaneous or planned ahead of time?) 

S - Sleepy sex (do they give oral to wake their partner up? do they like receiving oral to wake up? do they like fucking their partner awake? being fucked awake? how about being fucked to sleep at night? do they have lazy morning sex?) 

T - Top or bottom (self explanatory…) 

U - Underwear (what kind of underwear do they put on in the morning, if any at all… do they own any sexy underwear or lingerie?) 

V - Voyeurism (do they like to watch, or are they more hands on? are they more of an exhibitionist?) 

W - Water (pool sex? bath / shower sex? are they into watersports at all?)

X - X-dressing (do they crossdress as a part of teasing / foreplay? does crossdressing turn them on? turn their partner on? do they prefer to do it or watch their partner crossdress instead? do they use other costumes? cat ears, tails, etc?) 

Y - Yes, Master (what kinds of names are used during sex? do they like being called master / mistress, daddy, etc…? what names do they call their partner?) 

Z - Zones (what are their erogenous zones? what spots on their body should be touched, bitten, kissed, when someone wants to get them in the mood?) 

[alovesreading]

Constant Repeat | Part 2

Summary:  Having worked at Focus Creeps for a year, Ella knows that as a production assistant and part of the crew, there’s one important rule: don’t interact with the talent unless it’s needed. But once she meets Arctic Monkeys, and the recording of the music videos for their upcoming fourth studio album starts, the band seem to become her exception. Not only because they treat her more like a friend than just someone else they’re working with but when Alex continuously makes her blush with his flirting, so enthralled by her that he forgets he’s got a girlfriend, Ella finds herself growing closer to him. As videos are filmed, wrapped and edited, the friendship lines become blurry. Situations unfold, secrets are told and others are kept under lock and key, but how long can Alex and Ella endure being stuck in each other’s minds on constant repeat.

Word Count: 15.5k

Story Warnings: Throughout this series there will be suggestive talk, jealousy, cheating, alcohol and drug use, angst, smut.

A/N: Hello!! I'm still pinching myself over the fact that I'm posting this story now lol, it doesn't quite feel real you're all getting to read it now. I remember so clearly how giddy I was writing this chapter back in April 2022 and reading it back again makes me so nostalgic for some reason. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy! x

Masterlist 

Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 |

✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧

One thing she wasn’t expecting to hear from Aaron today was that they would be filming another music video. But it wasn’t the fact that it was a music video, it was whose music video they were filming.

Arctic Monkeys were back. And Focus Creeps were producing their new music video. Again.

After filming ‘Brick by Brick’, she had started listening to them religiously, and that was a fact she would keep quiet now that she knew she was going to see the band again. Their latest single, ‘Don’t Sit Down Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair’, was so good—she listened to it at least twice on any drive she made.

Another list was handed over by Aaron, this time with days of anticipation and not as long as the first one. She’d just need to make some calls to a couple of models to see who could make it to the shoot and just make sure the costume design department was ready to work with the model once they managed to get her.

Their job shouldn’t be too hard as all the girls that were written down as an option had similar measurements, if anything they’d just have to do a little cinching at the waist or shorten the sleeves of the black bodysuit she’d have to wear.

After multiple calls, they finally had a model. Scarlett would be their hellcat and she’d be coming in for fittings later in the day. With that news and everything else checked out, she made her way over to Aaron’s office.

“We have our girl: Scarlett Kapella. She’ll be coming by at eleven for her fittings and the makeup rehearsal, everything else I’ve checked out twice and if anything comes up I’ll just let you or Ben know.” The director received the now crossed out and annotated list with a nod and a smile.

“Great, after the fittings and all that, please have the costume design department bring me the pictures to show the clients.” Aaron tapped his hands on the table and then put the list to the side.

With a smile she said, “Of course, I'll call Margaret to let her know.”

“Thanks Ella.” Aaron said and continued to do whatever he was doing on his computer.

With a nod she left the office, making her way to her desk and gave Margaret, the costume designer department manager, a quick call about Aaron’s wishes after the fittings.

As Ella went through her emails, she found herself pondering how this time would be, surely she didn’t really know what the plan for the video was other than the model being filmed at the venue they were playing at and catching some of the gig on camera, but she kept wondering what it would be like to hang around them for a second time.

Thinking back to when they were filming their music video always brought a smile to her face because it had been just one of those experiences that get stuck in your mind. And that memory was just as stuck in her mind as they way she had felt talking to them, even if it had been brief, they were so friendly that they’d made her feel incredibly at ease from the very second they spoke to her.

Not to mention the way she had felt under Alex’s gaze and attention. It was weird really, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it and she felt the slightest bit pathetic when she got nervous thinking about seeing Alex again.

Realizing she had been typing an email reply that made absolutely no sense, she forced herself to focus on work and leave the questions for another day, specifically for the day the band was supposed to be in town. You can focus for three more days, right?

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Three torturous days had passed, through which Ella had to force herself to focus on work every minute of the day, only really allowing herself to think about the future encounter during her lunch break.

She had once been staring too long at the wall while eating her favorite chicken salad, thinking and thinking, that she didn’t hear the constant questioning of her coworkers.

“Earth to Ella?” Tyler’s hands were waving in front of her eyes.

It took her six blinks to come back from reality, she swallowed the bite of chicken she had in her mouth and cleared her throat, “What? Sorry, I was just… erm…” another six consecutive blinks, “I was just thinking about the upcoming music video we have to film.” She dug her fork back into her plate to get another bite.

“Oh yeah, well that’s going to be fun, we get to see a concert for free.” Diana, the head of their makeup team, said.

Ella let a hum in agreement, holding back from talking with her mouth full.

“It’s going to be a long day though.” Tyler replied, and rubbed his face with his hands, “I need a nap just from thinking about it.”

She chuckled, “Same.” and sighed thinking about the endless ways that day could unfold.

But now all that was in her head was how tired she was. It had been an early call to work to start shooting as soon as possible and, of course, she had had to wake up at five in the morning to be in the office ready to leave by six.

Once again, they would capture them around LA so Ben had suggested going on a hike next to the beach, that way they could get them in different scenery and they could capture their surroundings to fulfill the California aesthetic they were looking for.

So there they were, being hit by the early morning wind. This time she had brought a jacket, not that it made much difference though, she had her hold tight on her clipboard, having to press it hard to her chest to avoid the papers on it flying everywhere. She was grateful for her decision to put her hair up in a ponytail before leaving the van.

They had parked right beside the blue vintage convertible the band had arrived in. All of them were smoking and chatting. Matt and Jamie were facing them, Nick and Alex with their backs to the van. When Aaron and Ben approached them to say hello, they started tossing the buds to the floor, putting them out quickly before shaking hands with the two Americans.

Ella took Alex’s smile and Matt’s nod as a queue to get closer and wave at them, “Hi guys, good morning.” She smiled and covered her face from the rising sun hitting her face.

They all returned her greeting and she felt warm inside from how nice they were to her, even if she was well aware it was bare minimum.

Ben then decided to get things started out, “Okay guys, long day ahead. Are you ready?”

Four yeah’s were heard and with that Aaron turned to get the whole crew ready. Today they were using four video cameras and she felt bad for the cameramen, their arms would be giving out by the end of the day.

The stylist made her way towards the band, only Jamie asking for a hair touch up after the wind had messed it up on the drive and he couldn’t get it just right with his fingers.

Ella made her way to the crew where a short speech from Aaron was being heard, and right when it finished they all scrambled to get their things ready. She made sure to ask everyone if they needed anything else, and when she got full confirmation that they didn’t, she made her way back to Ben.

“I think having you guys walk around, catching some of the scenery and eventually you posing in front of the landscape would be good.” He waved his hands around pointing to the areas he was thinking of having them, to make sure the lads were following his vision, “We would get most of the footage for the video later at the venue so just enjoy the walk and we’ll capture it all.” A smile came to his face as a silent ‘is that alright and understood?’

The four British men agreed, and with that Aaron came over with the cameramen ready to film. Them all taking different positions: three taking different angles on the band and the other one recording the beach and the rest of the place they were at.

“You guys ready? Cameras ready? … Action!”

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“You’re as bad in the barely cold as I remember.” Alex said, approaching Ella with a playful smile minutes into the break everyone had just decided to take.

An hour had gone by of them recording the band walking around the coast, making their way to the beach and then coming back up to the hiking trail. Up there the wind was strong and, even though the sun had already come up and she was wearing a jean jacket, she was still shivering slightly.

She chuckled and turned to him, hugging herself a little bit tighter, “So easy for you to say, Mr. England.”

He fully laughed this time, her smile getting bigger after the sound left his lips, “Fair enough, Ms. California.”

At that she looked at him, a slight smirk on her face and shook her head, “Ms. Tennessee actually.”

Pulling his cigarettes out of his pocket, Alex nodded, “Doesn’t it snow there though?” He genuinely asked, putting a cigarette between his lips and offered the pack up to her.

He was surprised when Ella took one out, of course he was going to offer one but he didn’t take her for a smoker. “It does, but after living in LA for almost two years, you get used to it being always sunny, warm and rainless.” As soon as she finished her sentence, she quickly put it between her lips, craving the warmth the nicotine would bring her.

Alex lit up both of their cigarettes, enjoying the way she looked when she slightly bent down towards the flame and looked up into his eyes, a faint hollow of her cheeks to take a long drag. Fucking hell, he cursed in his mind.

He took a drag himself while staring at her now very exposed throat from the way she was looking up to the sky and blowing the smoke upwards. She was so effortlessly stunning, completely enthralling.

Aware of the answer he was supposed to give to her statement, he cleared his throat and continued the conversation, “Two years huh? What was that change like?”

“Quite harsh I’d say but nothing ventured, nothing gained right?” Ella held her cigarette between her fingers, smiling at him, knowing damn well she was starting the thing she always does, that only leads up to oversharing to people she just met. Maybe this time she wouldn’t be met with an awkward smile and an apology from a girl wanting to leave the club’s bathroom.

“Right,” Alex matched her smile, “You look like you really like your job though, so I’d say the risk was worth it.”

“It really was,” She started sharing with a smile on her face, “Thinking back to all those first months I was homesick and wanted to go back home to my family…” She filled her lungs with smoke once more before continuing, “I just wish I could tell my past self, everything would get better eventually.”

He nodded, understanding perfectly the feeling of wanting to be back home more than anything else even while doing something to fulfill your dreams, “Homesickness is hard.” He agreed, “After the novelty of touring wore off, it was quite hard for me to leave.” A cloud of smoke made its way past his lips, “Time and having my mates with me helped the feeling pass.”

A low hum came from her, both of their smokes halfway done. She was lost in her head for a few seconds and then she lightly chuckled.

Alex let out a chuckle as well, face showing how intrigued he was in her thoughts, “What?” He tilted his head, smiling at her with a soft questioning frown.

Ella shook her head, “Nothing.” She replied but the little laugh that slipped out betrayed her and she felt the need to explain her amusement then, “It’s just I could picture you all cuddling and crying to each other in a tour bus, quite endearing I’d say.”

With his lips pressed and a slight raise of his eyebrows, he answered that with a vague “I will neither confirm nor deny that scenario.” and with that she exploded in laughter. The sound was so contagious he joined her, chuckling loudly himself.

“Oh God.” Ella said, taking a deep breath to recover from the laughter. She took a last drag of her cigarette, putting it out on the ground, “Thanks for that one, I really needed it.” She tilted her head looking at him with a sincere smile.

Alex turned to look at her and reciprocated the grin, “The laugh or the smoke?” He mimicked her and got rid of the cig too.

“Both.” She replied, her smile stuck on her face.

“You’re welcome.” He noted how he really liked the way her smile reached her eyes.

From afar they heard Jamie calling out the singer's name and instinctively they both turned to where the call came from, only Ella looked back ahead right after, blushing from being caught around Alex. It wasn’t a bad thing per se but she’d rather not be caught by several people talking to him when she was there to do her job and she knew that it would be seen as the opposite of her being professional.

“Excuse me.” Alex said quietly, starting to walk past her.

“It’s alright.” Ella assured shyly, barely audible since her words lost volume when he touched her arm when leaving. Not only just a touch, he had given her arm a little squeeze, as if promising he’d be back.

And she was selfishly hoping he would live up to his silent word because she was starting to really enjoy his company.

✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧

Time hadn’t been on their side, neither the crew or the band.

When they resumed the filming, she was beside the directors watching the musicians pose and move around but after fifty more minutes they decided they had gotten enough footage at the place and to move onto the venue. There the model and costume design crew would be arriving in approximately an hour and a half, giving them enough time to pack, make the drive and settle down at the new place.

So without having a chance to speak again during the hike, Ella followed the crew and got back inside the van.

Ben went over to the left side of the van, and asked for them to open the window. Tyler was informed he had to film the guys drive back, taking advantage of how cool the vintage car would look in the video driving down the west coast highway.

She was beside Tyler the whole drive, watching how the takes were looking like—pretty fucking cool, she’d say if she was asked. With fifteen more minutes of footage, Tyler was given the confirmation that he could stop.

The rest of the drive was quiet and calm, she was glad she could find relaxation in the middle of an already long day.

After a forty five minute drive, they had parked in the first sublevel parking lot. Everyone carried something back up to the room they had been instructed they could use, which turned out to be a ten minute walk in a maze of hallways. She’d make sure not to leave without someone else beside her or else she knew she would get lost.

It took the whole crew about five minutes to settle around the room, and they still had time to rest before the model and other members of the crew arrived so they occupied the sofas and chairs that were there.

She decided to go to the bathroom and freshen up, taking some girls from the crew with her. When they came back, she recognized Alex and Matt talking outside a door all the way down the hall.

“Hey, Ella!” Alex greeted her, waving her over with his left hand, right hand holding a beer.

Blushing slightly, Ella looked at her coworkers telling them she was going over to him and they nodded as if to say it was fine by them.

For fucks sake, was all that went through her head. She was really afraid of people getting the idea that she’d broken the first and most important rule in a production company just from the way he’d called her over. But at the same time she couldn’t help but think maybe it was fine, maybe she was just overthinking it.

Putting some hair behind her ear she made her way to them, “Hey, how is it going?” She asked quite shyly from seeing the room the musicians had been in, full of people she’d never seen before.

“Do you want a beer?” This time Matt asked, holding up his half-empty bottle to show it to her, as if that would help her make her decision.

She thought about it for a hot second, then decided she could use one to relax for a bit, “Sure, thanks.”

Going into the room to get her a bottle, the drummer left Ella by the door standing opposite to Alex.

“Are you guys tired of us following you around with cameras yet?” Playfulness coated Ella’s features as she slightly leaned against the doorframe.

With the bottle stopping midway to his lips, Alex replied in the same playful manner, “I think we have another hour in ourselves before we reach that point.”

She chuckled at that, her eyes wondering over the amount of people inside the room, everyone chatting, sharing drinks and laughing with each other. She thought of how fun it would be to be part of this industry and go on tour, be surrounded by friends and have your job not really feel like one. After all, these people, who she could only think were part of the tour production crew, were drinking a few hours before the show. How she wished she could have a beer while checking emails, or maybe some mimosas.

After Alex swallowed the drink he had taken, he continued, “No but actually, we liked working with Aaron and Ben, that’s why we’re doing the rest of this record’s music videos with you lot.”

She couldn’t help her eyes going wide at that, Aaron and Ben never mentioning it to her, this news made her feel a lot and she couldn’t really point out what everything that she felt meant. So of course a curious “Oh really?” was what came from her.

Alex nodded, “Yeah, or did you really want us out of your hair?”

Ella laughed, shaking her head, “Of course not, shooting music videos is my favorite part of the job. It’s a plus that you’re all so lovely to work with.” He didn’t miss the way her cheeks slightly blushed, smirking at her words.

“Well I hope we are your favorites.” The singer used the bottle in his hands to point at her, giving her a quick wink.

She felt her cheeks burning up from that so she turned her gaze to the inside of the room for him not to see, “I’ll consider it when Matt comes back with that beer he promised me” She pushed herself off the doorframe, her back vaguely aching from resting there.

And as if summoned, the drummer made his way back to the two of them. “Sorry Nick distracted me for a second there.” He apologized and handed Ella a beer bottle.

“Thank you.” She felt the condensation dripping through her fingers as she clutched it.

Alex noticed her bottle still had the cap on and was about to offer to open it for her, when she used the ring on her middle finger to take it off in one swift movement. She put the cap in her back pocket to throw it away later and took a swig of the drink, cold going down her throat.

“Nice trick.” Matt complimented, fairly impressed as well.

Ella looked confused for a second until she realized what he meant, “Oh yeah, people love it when I do that.” She lightly laughed, “Not that impressive really, it’s easier than it looks.” She cleared her throat lightly and started conversation with Matt, “So Alex just told me you’re recording more videos with us…” Another swig of her beer was the cue for them to continue with the conversation.

“Ah that’d be true, yes. It would be the next date we are back here during this tour. August, I reckon.” He turned to Alex to make sure his timeline was correct, to which his best mate nodded.

Ella nodded, a smile forming on her face, “Oh that’s great, California is stunning in August. Are you going to keep the American vibes going for the rest of the videos?”

Helders turned to Alex again, realizing that what Ella had said was true, “We have been doing that, haven’t we?”

Alex nodded, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down after he took the last gulp of his beer, “I guess we’re embracing the fact that this one has an american west coast feeling to it, us recording it here must have played a part on it.”

She hummed against her bottle, hiding the fact that she was really looking forward to that new album, “Does it have a name yet?” curiosity got the best of her and she just couldn’t hold back from keeping that question inside.

“Suck it and See'', replied Matt, an amused expression on his face when he saw Ella frowning immediately after the words reached her ears.

She took a few seconds to find a meaning for it in her head, but never would she say out loud what the first thing that came to her mind was. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Her frown only loosened up a bit.

Matt chuckled at her reaction, “It’s kind of like ‘bite the bullet’, although… not really, it’s more like ‘take the risk’”.

Alex and Ella exchanged looks then, the ghost of their conversation back at the hiking trail passing through both their minds. So she smiled and he smiled back at her. She couldn’t believe how comfortable she could feel with a person she’d barely met but it made her feel warm inside and she really quite liked it.

With a tight lip smile she nodded, “Huh, I really like that. It’s a great name.” Her eyes went from Matt to Alex’s figure for a quick second.

“Thanks Ella.” Matt smiled at her, not missing her fleeting glance to the singer standing beside him. “So, what about you? How long have you been working with Ben and Aaron?”

She hesitated for a second before starting to talk, “A little bit over a year now, but I’ve been a PA for two years, I just worked in another company before.” Ella felt so weird talking about her normal slightly boring job to the critically acclaimed musicians, but they were looking at her waiting for her to continue so she cleared her throat and felt her cheeks start to burn.

“Guys I’m not that interesting, I check emails most of the time at work and oversee people filming commercials, I’d rather hear about your tour stories.” Alex chuckled at that, shaking his head, “C’mon, I know there’s some good stories.” She insisted, trying to get the conversation’s topic back to them.

Matt took advantage of the moment to embarrass his friend, “Well there’s always the time when this dickhead decided to have a smoke backstage right under a smoke detector, in a room we were not allowed to smoke. We almost got kicked out of the venue for it.”

Alex shook his head at the story, not even trying to defend himself because he knew he should’ve listened to the sign that said no smoking right at the entrance of the room.

Ella snorted, her hand flying to cover her mouth, “Oh my god Alex,” She said between chuckles, “Didn’t you see it?”

“Not really,” replied the singer with a slight grin on his face.

Matt was quick to counter attack his statement, “But he did see the massive no smoking sign outside the room”, his eyebrows raised.

Her eyes filled with humor looked at Alex and she shook her head, biting her lip to not laugh again but a smile creeping through, “You’re just full of bright ideas aren’t you?” Her rhetorical question was heavily sarcastic.

Alex shrugged then and smirked, “People would say so yeah”.

With the bottle resting on his lips, Matt chuckled, “Dickhead” and took a sip of his drink.

With his mind set on getting payback, Alex started, “Well, Ella I think you’d love to hear about the first time we went to a club in America and Matt went over to flirt with this bird who turned around and thought he worked there so she gave him her empty glass and asked him for another vodka cranberry.”

Ella burst out laughing, head thrown back as she did. Alex liked learning that this meant she was genuinely laughing, she seemed to always show what she felt very clearly through her body language.

“Oh no Matt,” her voice filled with humored sympathy and her hand over her heart.

The drummer shook his head, “That’s what I get for trying to dress nice I suppose.”

A big smirk tugged at the corner of her lips and she just needed to ask, “What were you wearing?”

Matt mumbled his answer, “Black trousers, a white button up and a black tie”, downing the rest of the beer he had left to avoid her glance.

Alex couldn’t help but laugh out loud remembering the moment once again and Ella did the same just imagining the situation in her head. Matt tried to keep his composure but ended up laughing with them.

“Oh nooooo,” She elongated her words trying to get some air back to her lungs, “Wait… what did you do afterwards?”

“I just nodded and turned around.” Another round of laughter came from Alex and Ella, “What was I supposed to do?!”

Alex turned to her and kept adding to the story, “He came back, put her glass down on our table and started taking his tie off.” the words struggling out of his mouth between giggles.

When Ella kept laughing Matt threw his arms up, trying to keep his argument strong, “Once again, what was I supposed to do?!”

The singer let his head hang as he continued laughing and then he took a deep breath, “I dunno mate but I’ll never let you forget that one.” He grinned with satisfaction at his best mate who looked only the slightest bit amused.

She was fanning her face, red now after so much laughter, “I’m sorry Matt but that’s so sad, it’s hilarious.”

Matt turned to look at her and gave her a fake smile, “I’m glad my misfortunes amuse you.”

The shaggy haired man turned to her then, “So, what do you have for us Ella?”

With confusion so clear on her face she looked at both guys who looked at her expectantly, “What do you mean?” Was she meant to bring them something? Did she forget about something in the list? Oh no, I should’ve had a little debrief with Ben or Aaron before leaving our room, she thought, starting to slightly panic.

Panic that was cut off by Alex saying, “It’s your turn to tell us a story.” like it was obvious.

She was relieved but only for a mere second before she started to stress again, “Oh no, you don’t really wanna know” She stated, hoping they would just suddenly change their minds and agree that indeed they didn’t want to know.

But to her dismay, they both nodded with big grins as if already holding back the laughter her story was going to bring.

An embarrassing enough story came to her mind, and she dreaded telling it but she knew they’d eat this one up so she wouldn’t have to tell her most embarrassing one.

“Ugh fine.” Ella sighed, “When I first started in Focus Creeps, I would always try to volunteer to help in anything I could, from helping the makeup department practice on me during my lunch break, get everyone lunch when they were all to busy to think about eating, and even drive a vintage car to a place thirty minutes from the office.” One of her hands was around her empty bottle, tapping her fingers on the glass and the other was waving around the air as she talked.

Well here goes nothing. “A vintage car…which of course was manual,” She paused for a few seconds, Matt and Alex already looking amused expecting just what she was going to continue to say, “And I don’t know how to drive stick.” Another sigh left her lips.

Matt saw her hesitating, “Okay, go on.” He chuckled when she rolled her eyes and sighed heavily.

“Okay, I’m just going to say that I didn't know what car it was. Ben just asked if someone could drive the rental to the studio we were filming at and I said I could.” She explained herself and her two person audience snickered at that. “Anyway, when we got outside and I saw the transmission, it was too late to back down. I just remember thinking, how hard can this be right?”

“Oh Ellie.” Alex managed between small giggles that were coming prematurely to the punchline since he could imagine how the story would end and she just shook her head remembering the embarrassment. Yet, her stomach fluttered at hearing her nickname come from him.

“Ben was going to be on calls, that’s why he asked for someone to drive in the first place, but that’s also the only reason why he didn’t notice me struggling to turn on the car and start driving into the road. When we hit our first red light, two minutes into the drive, I had started feeling confident.” Her hands following her story, then went to rub her forehead cringing at the next part, “But when the light changed, the car wouldn’t move and I didn’t know what to do. I kept stepping on the clutch and then the brake and I just tried everything and it wouldn’t move.” Her eyes were closed now and her cheeks red.

Alex and Matt were fully cackling now, just picturing her panic and it all being in front of one of her bosses.

She looked back at them, flustered but continued, “The car turned off at one point and people kept honking at me so Ben said ‘can I call you in a bit?’ to whoever he was talking to and then turned to me super confused and said ‘why don’t you go?’” A light chuckle came from her at the end of her sentence. “I gave up then, and I just told him ‘so… I don’t know how to drive stick’ but since the honking from everyone was so loud he didn’t hear me at first so I had to say it louder. We ended up having to switch sides and he basically talked me through what I was supposed to do.”

Matt shook his head with a pitiful look on his face, “Well, that was nice of him.”

“Yeah well, we didn’t talk about it for the next few days until one day he sent me an email with just a link to a YouTube video on how to drive a manual car.” Ella’s face was red now and the musicians were still laughing.

Alex couldn’t help but ask, “Alright but the million dollar question is, can you drive manual now?”

Covering her face, Ella shook her head, “As much as I did then.” Her voice was barely audible with her hands hiding her face.

And with that laughter filled the hallway, she uncovered her face and joined them, glad the story time was over and dealt with. She could see Alex’s eyes creasing in the corners, his teeth showing in a perfect smile. He’s so pretty, she thought.

Ella did a curtsy jokingly, “I hope that story satisfied you both.”

The men nodded, Matt smirking at her, “Oh very much, yes.”

“I hate you two.” She tried to sound serious but she just snorted immediately after seeing their faces that didn’t buy her statement one bit. She cleared her throat and tried to dismiss the fact that she had let that sound out again in front of them, “Well let’s forget about that… uhm, big show tonight?”

“We shall never forget that actually,“ Alex said first and foremost, ending in her rolling her eyes playfully, “And maybe? It should be a couple thousand I think.”

Her eyes went wide, “A couple thousand? And that’s ‘maybe’ a big show?” Ella made air signs to emphasize the maybe. “How big are you guys that a couple thousand isn’t a lot to you?”

Matt took over then and completely blew her mind, “Well, we’ve done Glastonbury four years ago, and that was about a hundred thousand people.”

In complete shock she had to ask, “Wait, you’re joking right?” And when they shook their heads she gasped, “A hundred thousand people?! That’s insane! How do you even manage to keep cool and play for that many people?”

Alex’s face lit up with pride and nostalgia, “It was insane, and we were definitely shitting ourselves but that was our biggest moment so we just took it as it went.”

She was so impressed and blown away, she had definitely underrated how big they were but they seemed so cool about it at the same time.

Just when Ella was about to ask a bit more about their experience her phone pinged on her back pocket and when she took it out, she saw a text from Diana.

Diana: Model’s here and getting ready, can you tell Aaron for me please?

Putting the phone back in its place, she looked at her new… friends? acquaintances? and sighed, “Thank you so much for that guys but duty calls. Sorry.”

“S’Alright” Alex gave her a tight lip smile and then timidly suggested, “You can always come back and hang out here when you’re done.” He scratched the back of his neck, avoiding Matt’s not at all subtle glance.

Ella blushed slightly, “Oh- uhm, sure, yes.” was all she managed to say back. She didn’t expect him or well, them, to want to spend even more time with her after this.

She was about to turn around when she looked down at the bottle on her hand, “Where is the tra-”

“I’ll get it for you, don’t worry.” Alex interrupted her, taking it from her hand.

“Oh thanks,” Ella cleared her throat and hoped to god her cheeks weren’t as bright as she was thinking they were from just feeling them burning up. She needed to get a grip and stop blushing like a schoolgirl around the man. “See you later.”

With that she turned and made her way to the door on the other side of the hallway. Her black pants were tight on her and Alex was quite hypnotized by the sight.

Matt followed the trail of his eyes and smirked, “Alexa would get on with her quite nicely, don’t you think?”

Alex turned quickly at the mention of his girlfriend and then rolled his eyes at his friend’s antics, “Piss off, Helders.”

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It had been an hour since Ella left the musicians. She had gotten the message to her bosses and the whole crew had started getting everything ready for filming. Alongside Ben and Aaron she had gone to where Scarlett, the model, was getting ready and after fifteen minutes of the directors explaining what it was she had to do, they had gone back out to see which hallways and routes they were going to take for filming.

Clipboard on her hand, Ella kept writing stuff down that was going to be relayed to the editing team and minor things they should ask the band later to see if they needed reshoots or if the ideas were fine with them. After all, they still had tomorrow to film with them so there was time in case more footage was needed.

After almost twenty minutes they had finally started rolling. Scarlett strutting down the venue's backstage maze in her high heels and tight bodysuit. She’s an actual goddess, was all that went through Ella’s head since the model had come out of the dressing room.

The woman was so effortlessly seductive, flirting with the camera with just her eyes. She wished she had that confidence or even just that talent—because it surely had to be considered a talent to act like her.

The most flirty Ella could ever get was after a few shots of tequila and at least some thirty minutes on the dancefloor, a little liquid courage and the confidence that dancing brought her were her fuel to get with anyone on nights out. But of course most of the time it was hard: the guys mostly turned out to be assholes and the girls were so pretty, they intimidated her.

Needless to say she was feeling jealous, but in a good way, of how Scarlett made it seem so easy to be sexy and teasing—even more so considering how she was doing that to a camera, with a bunch of people behind as an audience. Wow.

She was entranced, the top of her pen resting between her slightly parted lips. Her eyes followed the model’s every move, so intently, that she didn’t notice a door opening a few feet behind the girl.

And out of it walked no one other than Alex Turner.

Scarlett, professional as ever, only turned for a second to see who had interrupted the shot and then went back to keeping her act going. Ella, trying to be professional, held back from doing more than tilting her chin up acknowledging his presence. Alex, definitely not professional, grinned at her and didn’t let his plan of spending more time with the PA be ruined by the fact that she was busy and wouldn’t take him up to going for a smoke with him outside.

So, seeing how the model turned to the camera and started playing with her hair, he mimicked the actions hoping it would make Ella laugh. Scarlett started to slide down the wall, playing with her hair; actions Alex mirrored and made everyone chuckle, even the model when she saw what he was doing in just the same enticing way. He was looking at Ella though, how she was covering her mouth but her grin was so obviously plastered on her face.

And as the hellcat kept going, he did too, with his eyes stuck on Ella and a big smirk playing on his lips. Even though that show only lasted for a minute, Ella couldn’t wash away the feeling of his burning gaze on her.

Ben had cut the scene, laughing at Alex’s actions. “Come here man, let me show you some shots we’ve got.” he waved the singer over, and obeying he walked up to the directors.

Walking past Ella he brushed his hand on her elbow and said a hey quite faintly. Warmth. That’s what she felt when he did those little things and she hated how she couldn’t fight it, very aware of how lame she was looking to herself and to anyone who noticed the way she blushed whenever he did or said something to her. Get a grip Ella, c’mon you can be professional.

For ten minutes Ben and Aaron had Alex slightly hunched over the camera’s monitor, pointing out the different angles and footage they had managed to take so far. They all laughed watching what he had just pulled a few minutes ago, Ella’s grin growing as she watched the footage from a few meters behind them.

“Does that look good?” Aaron asked him when the last clip came to a stop.

Nodding, Alex gave him the green light, “Yeah, it looks great mate.” He itched his chin and decided to share an idea he had come up with, “I was thinking maybe she could come side stage while we’re on, just having her dance along to some songs.”

Ben liked the idea, immediately agreeing with it, “Oh that would work very well in the video.”

Aaron then decided to joke around with him, “Have you considered being a director if the rockstar gig doesn't pay off?”

He laughed softly, stealing a quick glance at Ella who was grinning at him already. “Well I hadn't until now.”

After a wave of laughter from the crew, the directors ordered everyone to take a break. The filming would resume when the band was going on stage, meaning they had around forty to fifty minutes until then.

Before everyone could leave though, Alex made an invitation, “Ben, everyone is welcome to join us in our room. We have drinks and our tour crew is there as well so you can meet everyone and chat.”

Ben clapped the singer's shoulder, “Thanks dude, we’ll take you up on it. We can even record a little bit there, just you all hanging out backstage if that’s alright with the band and your crew.”

He gave the director a nod, “Of course, yeah. See you all there.” He turned around and left, not missing a chance to give Ella one final look, her eyes were on him and they shared a silent promise of seeing each other in a bit.

Of course it all was an excuse to chat with her again whilst they still had time. The band had already gone through soundcheck and the crew had set lighting and the stage up, so everything was ready for the show to start at its time and go smoothly.

He surely was getting tired of having to get filmed but he would bite his tongue for a little longer if it meant he could spend more time with the pretty girl. And yes, he had a girlfriend, but there was nothing wrong with being aware of another girl being pretty right? It’s not like he was going to kiss her or take her back to his hotel room, he was just going to share drinks and conversation with her. Friendly talk, just that.

Ten minutes later, they were being joined by the Focus Creeps crew. Introductions were thrown everywhere, especially from Ella who on her way to get a drink was making sure she had said hello to everyone.

Alex found that endearing but he couldn’t help growing impatient. He had been subtly looking around the room for her a handful of times now. Matt on the other side of the room noticed, and elbowed Jamie who was right beside him. The guitarist frowned at his friend, confused about the sudden aggression. The frown loosening when he saw him nod in Alex’s way, both of them watched him very obviously search for her and chuckled.

“He has been doing that all day, hasn’t he?” Jamie asked Matt.

Nodding, the drummer confirmed, “Yep. I’ve been giving him reminders of Alexa’s existence though, just so he doesn’t forget.” Both laughed into their red cups that were filled with beer.

After what felt much more than the five minutes she had taken, Alex saw her making her way to him. She beamed at him and he smirked at her, raising his cup to her.

She stopped right beside him, they were standing right in one of the corners of the room. “Well hello.”

“Hey Ella,” He greeted and took a sip of his bourbon, “What are you having?”

She showed him her cup, “Saw some red wine on the table and couldn’t resist.” Her faint smile breaking as she took a sip.

“You know… earlier you surprised me, I didn’t take you for a smoker.” He said, his eyebrows raised.

She frowned in curiosity, “Really?” He shrugged, nodding and she continued teasingly, “Well you’d be surprised with the things you could find out.”

He smirked at her flirting, “Like what? Got any secret talents?”

“Secret talent? You’ve got too much faith in me, I literally just told you I don’t even know how to drive stick.” Ella couldn’t help but cackle out loud.

It wasn’t only remembering the story that made him laugh, but how contagious her laughter was. His eyes were crinkled at the edges from his big grin, and she took a mental picture of it.

They continued to laugh, feeding off each other’s giggles and it was loud enough to catch the attention of a few people, including the rest of the band. Jamie pulled Matt with him and waved at Nick to join them on their quest to interrupt Alex’s interaction.

“Hey Ellie.” Matt greeted her as he threw his arm around her shoulders and hugged her to his side.

Ella blushed under the touch, not because of it making her feel something, but because she had been caught in a corner giggling and drinking with Alex. Of course the aforementioned didn’t know that was the reason behind her cheeks burning, so he was silently fuming at his friend's closeness with the girl, thinking she was blushing from their proximity. “Hi Matt.” She slightly leaned towards his side as a way to reciprocate his hug.

Alex needed a way to break the contact since it seemed Helders wasn’t thinking of getting his arm off of her, so he turned to his other two band mates.

“Ellie, this is Jamie and Nick.” He was relieved to see how she took a step forward to shake hands with the two of them, leaving Matt’s arm to fall back by his side.

She gave a shy smile and corrected the singer, “Ella, nice to meet you guys again.”

They reciprocated her grin and greeting, and she went back to standing in the middle of Alex and Matt. Their group now forming a small circle in the corner.

She was afraid of things becoming awkward now with everyone there but what Nick said next made her face drop. “Ella, you know, I can teach you how to drive manual. It isn't that hard.”

His offer was genuine, it was obvious from his facial expression but she turned to Alex and Matt with a look of betrayal, “I'm never telling you two anything ever again.” She took a swig of her drink as if that would make her embarrassment disappear.

All of them laughed, Matt being fast with his excuse. “Oh c'mon, it was too funny not to share.”

Alex immediately added, “We are kind people Ellie. Did you expect us to be selfish and keep that to ourselves?” She just rolled her eyes at their arguments, not annoyed but very embarrassed.

“I hate that I don’t even have anything to embarrass you back with, because they definitely already know the stories you told me.”

“Which ones?” Nick asked curious to know if they had told her something actually embarrassing.

She sighed, “The american girl who thought Matt worked at the club,” They all chuckle at the memory, Matt mumbling a quiet ‘for fucks sake’ at the mention of it, “and Alex smoking right under a smoke detector in a room he wasn’t allowed to smoke.”

“Oh yeah, the twat almost got us kicked out of the venue.” Jamie pointed at Alex accusingly.

He quickly talked back, “Jamie, do you wanna get thrown under the bus as well?” to which the guitarist shook his head frowning at him, thinking what on earth he could have on him. “Then shut up before I tell her about the ice cream shop bathroom.”

Jamie blushed then. “Don't you dare, Turner.” His threat seemed very serious which only made Ella more eager to find out.

She pouted at Alex, “No, I wanna hear it now.” She elongated the last word like it would get her some pity and they’d tell her but Jamie shook his head once more looking at Alex like he was going to knee him in the balls if he dared open his mouth. “It's only fair since you heard my nightmare of a story, without my permission may I add.” She pointed out.

Alex turned to Jamie and raised his eyebrows in support of her argument. Jamie let out a heavy sigh of defeat, “Fair enough, go ahead.”

Filled with satisfaction for winning the debate, Alex started talking, “So you see, we had just landed in London after a small tour around the States, and from the airport on the way home we went to an ice cream shop and sat down there to eat. Jamie here got some coconut ice cream, wasn’t it, Cook?” He teasingly asked his friend.

Jamie had an unamused face, he just rolled his eyes and replied, “Yes, it was.”

“Well after finishing… his ice cream,” The lads, except for Jamie, laughed at the way the singer had worded that and Ella was so confused. Alex just continued after a chuckle left his lips, “He went to the bathroom to wash his hands, he says, but he hadn’t noticed how he had spilled ice cream on himself, in a very particular area that didn’t make it look like just an accidental ice cream spill.”

The silence that Alex left by the end of it was long enough for her to connect the dots and cover her mouth with her right hand, hiding her hanging jaw behind it. “Jamie, no.” She said feeling the humiliation of the anecdote building up.

The singer resumed his narration, “Mind you, the ice cream was white so the stain was pretty much very realistic. He had also taken a while in the bathroom for some reason and when he came out he was sporting the biggest smile.”

“Oh my god, that’s mortifying.” Ella was shaking her head in disbelief.

Jamie took over then, “Well it got worse when someone recognized us and we took pictures with them. This dickhead here,” He pointed towards Matt, “Said ‘Did you have a special phone call with your girlfriend or summat? Couldn’t you wait until you got home?’ pointing to my crotch in front of the lad. The poor kid looked at me wide eyed, said thank you and left quickly. I was dead confused and then I saw it.”

“You took that long to realize?” She questioned the man.

“Yeah well, my mates are actually the worst so they didn't tell me.” He shrugged, face still very serious. Ella hoped he wasn’t mad.

Matt clapped his shoulder, “We’re the best of mates Jamie, what d’you mean?”

She saw how Jamie wasn’t the slightest bit amused so she turned the conversation into another direction. “Okay Nick, looks like it’s your turn.”

Poor Nick shook his head earnestly, “Oh no, Ella.”

“Please? You’re the only one left.” She insisted with the best puppy eyes she could make.

“Fine, but just because you didn't have a say in these two sharing yours.” He agreed and she stood straighter in excitement.

The bassist took some time to browse through his memories, “It probably has to be me losing my wallets all the time, so I gave up and never got a proper wallet again. And so conveniently in one interview, they asked us all to show what we had in our wallets and the only thing I had in my pockets was a mini harmonica.”

She was expecting something as bad as Jamie’s, “But that's not even embarrassing, that’s just cute and funny.”

Matt quickly cut in the exchange to play with her, “Ellie, are you flirting with O’Malley?”

She looked at the drummer and frowned, “No Matt, shut up, I’m just saying that’s cute and funny because it is!”

He kept going, nudging her hip with his. “Oh no, that sounds to me like you're definitely chatting him up.”

Ella couldn’t help the blush that reached her cheeks, making her roll her eyes and look at the ground for a few seconds.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

“You’re annoying” she sighed, shaking her head.

“Yeah he is, but you get used to it.” Nick said to comfort her, his eyes friendly on her. He decided to bring the attention back to him so she wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by Matt’s teasing. “Wait– no. Actually, it’s probably that time I broke a huge ice sculpture at a posh event we went to.”

She gasped, “You’re joking…”

“I wish I was. It was so loud, it was impossible to just walk out and act like nothing had happened.”

She giggled then, “The cleaning people must've wanted to kill you.”

Nick’s eyes were big, remembering how distraught he was at the time. “Oh I'm sure they were. Everyone was giving me nasty looks for the rest of the night.”

Ella tried not to laugh, feeling bad for Nick who seemed to be the nicest guy she’d ever met. “I’m sorry but that’s so embarrassing.” She broke in a fit of giggles then, unable to hold it any longer.

They all started laughing with her, Nick smiling brightly at her. “It really was.” He added, feeling glad she enjoyed the brief story.

After that, it was clear she had grown more comfortable around the musicians, the conversation flowed with ease and laughter could be heard from their group every so often. They would take turns to bring everyone refills, Matt bringing the whole bottle of red wine to her at one point, telling her she should just take it seeing how fast she was going through her cups.

She refilled her cup three times in the span of fifteen minutes, the drummer teasing her about it some more. He took the cup from her hand after she finished with her third serving and started a game of building a pyramid of red cups with every cup she’d finish. Of course, everyone joined and started lining up their cups as well making it a game that now involved everyone in the room.

Tyler had started recording a few minutes ago, catching the fast growth of the stack of plastic on the table. One that ended up being punched and destroyed by its same creator.

It was a lovely time, she was enjoying herself in their presence. But, as time does when you’re having a good time, soon the crew started to scramble out of the room, and five minutes later the band was being called over to head to the stage.

She was suddenly feeling the generous amount of red she had drunk, so a slightly slurred “Break a leg guys!” was what she said before they parted ways.

“Thanks Ellie!” They all said to her. Alex left last, giving her wrist a little squeeze and a soft smile before following his best mates’ path.

She took advantage of the minutes she had while everyone from her crew went to get their stuff, to start drinking water and sobering up. A trip to the bathroom also helped her get her act together.

Twenty minutes later, they had started filming once more. Now the model was making her way from backstage to the side of the stage where the Monkeys were performing. In the background Ella could hear the quick start of ‘Pretty Visitors’, and as they went up the stairs, they felt the vibrations of the bass on their chests.

Scarlett was swiftly moving her hips, twirling on her place and looking back at the camera with those eyes of hers. They took various shots of it, and as that was done she recognized in an instant the starting chords of ‘Teddy Picker’.

She subtly scooted closer to the stage, a few feet away from the production. She looked over the band, seeing how Alex had his guitar clutched in his hands, the way his hips moved as his lips grazed the microphone with every word he sang.

The lyrics of the song came out of her naturally, she kept her voice low, to not get the attention of her bosses—not that they could hear her easily because of the crowd being so loud but she wanted to be careful still.

The filming took quite some time, Ben saying something about wanting to have the model dancing to different rhythms so that later the editing team would choose the clips that better matched the song the video was about.

When the encore came, the band came over and said a quick hello to everyone before going downstairs into the backstage area. She assumed they were gonna take this time to use the restrooms. A few minutes later, she confirmed her theory was correct and as they came back to the side of the stage, Alex approached the directors.

“We’re going to do the song now. Sorry about the late notice, we just decided it.” His voice sounded apologetic.

Aaron was quick to settle him, “It’s alright, it actually will be even better for the music video. I’m gonna send a camera to film the crowd and another one to film you from below, if that’s alright with you?”

“Sure mate, that sounds good.” Alex replied quickly before nodding and leaving to go back on stage with the rest of the guys.

Just like that, they were back on. Screams were drowning the venue, and they only got louder when Alex told them they were going to perform a new one from the album.

With one camera on them, another one on the crowd and the other two back with the directors, they went back to filming Scarlett swaying her hips to the music once more. Ella tried her best to keep some focus on her job but she was entranced by the performance and the way the band caught their audience with such ease.

The song came to an end, the people hollering was all that could be heard for a good twenty seconds. Aaron and Ben decided to wrap up the section of the video, meaning Scarlett was good to go, so Ella went over to her to thank her and send her back with Diana and the rest of the costume and makeup department.

When she was done with that, Ben sent her over to the cameramen that were in front of the stage still recording. “Make sure they record until the concert is done, stay with them. It shouldn’t be that long until then.” She just nodded, quickly following the instructions but her speed was mostly motivated by the fact that she could at least see the last of the show.

As she got to the front of the right side of the crowd, she could hear Alex singing the first verse of ‘The View From the Afternoon’. She looked up at him, smiling and singing back the lines to him. He found her and grinned, his gaze going back to his fingers on his guitar and back to her in a matter of seconds. He almost pointed at her, but realized how that would look and he didn’t want any bullshit being talked about him in the press.

He was enjoying the fact that she knew the song and so confidently was singing along with the crowd. Alex became more surprised when she also knew ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’, their last song, but he certainly would forever keep the image of her swaying hips to the song in his mind.

Once the show finished, she went over to the two cameramen and walked back into the backstage zone with them on her side. They spent the short trip back to their room talking about how crazy that was, how many people were there and how good the band was.

In the room, the crew gathered everything and some people started going over to their van with their equipment in hand. The directors and Ella went over to the band’s room to say goodbye.

“Guys, it was a pleasure seeing you today.” Ben said, shaking hands and clapping shoulders with the British men.

“We’ll see you tomorrow. Final day!” Continued Aaron, with far more energy than one would have after such a long day of work.

The bandmates said goodbye to both and then it was Ella’s turn to bid farewell. “Thank you so much for today guys. We had the best time.” She said as she went hugging each member.

They hugged her back, reciprocating her words. When she reached Alex, who was the last to embrace her, he said, “I’ll walk back with you.”

She let go and nodded, “Okay.”

He followed her as she made her way to retrieve her things and some equipment that was left, helping her with a case filled with camera chargers.

They were silent as they made their way through the hallway maze, only when they came out to the parking lot did Ella speak up, her voice glazed with nervousness. “I guess I'll see you tomorrow then?”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow Ellie.” Alex gave her one last hug and she got the case from his hands.

He watched her as she walked over to the van and before she got in, she gave him a little wave and a shy smile to which he responded with a toothy grin.

✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧

Just like last time, the crew made the drive to the studio. Traffic had come down by the time they left the office so the trip was smooth and pretty calm.

The van’s atmosphere contrasted the nerves she was feeling, making her skin feel goosebumps when thinking of the day ahead.

She was glad the guys had taken her into the group so easily, making her comfortable and building enough trust to joke around with each other. What made her uneasy though was someone’s comment the night before: just before leaving the office, someone from costume design had teased her about how close she seemed with the band, and even though she knew they hadn’t meant it in a bad way, her stomach was in a knot and she couldn’t do much but shrug and brush it off.

“We were just chatting, they’re very nice.” Was what she said before saying goodbye to everyone and quickly making her way to her car.

That night she had taken longer doing her skin care routine, getting distracted by her thoughts and staring into her reflection for far longer than she realized.

Ella came back to reality when they parked outside the building, seeing the four guys sharing conversation while Jamie and Alex smoked.

Today the crew was smaller, only two cameras were going to be used and it was just four more people coming along the directors and Ella. The small group came out in little time, the band ending their chat in order to greet them.

“Ben, Aaron.” Alex said acknowledging the directors coming towards him, shaking their hands once they reached him. “Good morning everyone.” He waved at the rest of the crew behind the men.

A chorus of ‘good morning’ and ‘hello’ was heard then. Ella showed a shy grin which ended up in a full smile when the rest of the band looked at her and smiled at her presence.

“So, today’s a walk around Hollywood type of shoot right?” Ben asked Aaron for confirmation, Ella checking her clipboard and nodding at the same time as the director. “Well then, I think we could walk around these blocks, just catching you in the streets walking and we’ll see where the day takes us.”

The band nodded, somewhat tired of being recorded doing the most random things but what could they do. It was what came with the job. Their dream job.

And so they started making their way around the streets of Hollywood, California.

The sun hit them heavenly. Alex was wearing the leather jacket she had seen he had perched on the night before, with his usual sunglasses he had worn since they first met. Matt was also wearing sunglasses, while Jamie and Nick were facing the sunshine without any eyewear.

Their outfits were so simple but they wore them in such a way that just made them all look incredibly handsome. Anyone that laid eyes on them would be stuck in a trance for minutes just watching them do something as simple as cross the street.

Just like Ella was, completely and utterly enraptured by their presence. She tripped on a crack in the pavement and that was what brought her back to reality. She went red and only hoped no one had noticed.

Fifteen minutes they had been walking down Hollywood Boulevard, when Matt pointed excitedly at a building just a couple feet away from them. Arcade read the sign, in massive white letters. “Let’s go there, I’m sure we can film inside.”

Jamie sighed, just wanting to be done with the music video and rest. “Do we have to?”

Matt insisted, “C’mon mate, it’ll be fun.” Ella found it funny how much he sounded like a child trying to convince his parents to take him somewhere.

Ben then aided the drummer’s argument, “We can get the rest of the footage there while you all play, and we can have lunch as well.”

His suggestion had Nick and Alex shrugging, Matt nodded frantically and Jamie just closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Sure, let’s go.” Finally replied the guitarist, making Matt walk a bit faster, now leading the whole group into the establishment.

They found a table beside the bar where they settled down, placing a bunch of equipment on top of the table. The guys were quick to order beer bottles for each other, convincing the production team to order some drinks as well to cool down.

Their beverages arrived not that long after, the band only taking a couple sips before deciding to stand up and go over to the game machines.

Matt patted Ben on the shoulder, “Mate we’re gonna go off to play, that alright?”

“Yes, of course, don’t worry about us.” Ben assured them but giving it a second thought, he continued, “Actually,” he turned to his left side, reaching over a camcorder placed on top of the table and then directed his words towards Ella who was sitting in front of him, “Why don’t you go with them and record them playing? You know your way around working with cameras so it shouldn’t be a problem. Plus you seem to get on with them quite well.” He placed the device on her hands which she had hesitantly put forward.

Fuck! Ella yelled in her mind. To her this could only mean one thing: Ben had noticed how close she had gotten to the musicians and if he had then Aaron had noticed as well. Her freak out lasted a few seconds before she saw things in a new light since she realized her boss hadn’t made a big deal out of it or signaled it becoming an issue that got her in trouble at work. He had noticed, she guessed, but he hadn’t said a thing and maybe that meant it was alright. And if that was alright with the heads of the production company, then it should be alright with her.

Her internal debate felt like it went on for minutes but it had only been the longest five seconds she’d ever experienced. “Oh– sure, yes.” She stood up, taking the camera in one hand and her beer bottle on the other.

Matt nodded at her and started walking towards the guys who were waiting for him a few feet away from the table.

“Ellie! Are you joining us?” Asked Nick, glad to see her hanging out with them again. He found her a nice girl and very fun company.

She lifted the camera up, “It’s my job to torment you all now.” A smirk on her face to tease them, she could clearly see how bad they wanted the filming process to be over.

“Good that you’re getting this all on tape ‘cause yous are getting smoked today.” Matt cheekily said, claiming victory early.

She raised one of her eyebrows, “You think too highly of yourself, Helders.”

The drummer was quick to deny her statement, “No, I’m just aware of my skills.”

“I’d say your ego is going to be your worst enemy today, actually.” She taunted him.

He huffed trying to prove his point, and walked to the first machine that caught his attention, “Okay then, we shall start with this one.” He made his way to the boxing machine.

Nick grabbed Matt’s bottle from his hand so he could punch the bag, and said, “Ten quid Ella beats Helders on this one.”

“Thanks for the faith Nick.” Ella winked at him jokingly and Alex caught her expression, and whilst he found her even more attractive when she did it, he was the littlest bit disappointed it hadn’t been directed to him.

As if he was in the middle of a boxing match, Matt was on guard and moving his feet imitating a boxer’s moves. The camcorder in her hands was rolling, capturing the moment. “Ready?!” his question flying in the air a second before throwing a right hook to the tiny bag.

The red numbers automatically went up all the way until they hit 857. Matt turned around with a massive grin on his face, “Your turn now, Ellie.” He made a gesture for her to approach the game.

She turned to Alex and handed him her bottle, “Hold this for me please,” handing Jamie the camera right after. She made her way to the machine, and jumped a little on her spot letting her arms loose for a little to relax before getting on guard.

“Let’s go Ellie!” loudly cheered Nick, Jamie to his left had the camera in hand focused on her.

With that encouragement she threw a punch to the bag, the numbers climbing fast and reaching the 840s. They were all looking intently as they kept going up making it to 850, going up one more before it stopped.

Matt hollered loudly and anyone could think he had won the lottery not an arcade game against a friend—but hey, that’s men with their pride when it comes to games. He proceeded to take his beer from Nick's hand and down what he had left in celebration.

She clapped her hands, “Well done, Helders.”

“Glad to see you aren’t a sore loser, Ella.” he replied, throwing his arm around her shoulders.

She gave into his action, appreciating the friendly contact and leaning into him as they walked. “I would love to say the same about you but I have the feeling that would be a lie.” she teased, elbowing him on the ribs softly.

Alex walked up to Ella and gave her her drink back, hoping she would take it and leave Matt’s side. His best friend was getting more comfortable around the girl than he’d like to see, and for once Matt had the advantage of actually being single to do anything he’d like.

Fucking hell.

To his relief, Ella grabbed her glass back after giving him a small thank you and then walked to Jamie to retrieve the recording device.

Nick started walking ahead for a few seconds before he stopped and turned to the PA. “How about we race with our favorite driver?” He joked and everyone laughed, even her.

She faked hurt, a hand over her heart, “And here you were becoming my favorite.” She sniffled to seem more dramatic but chuckled right after.

Jamie and Matt went first against each other, leaving their glasses on top of the machines. Curses and insults were thrown all throughout the course of the race, making the laughter of the group loud and continuous. Ella hoped the footage wasn’t too shaky and it could be used in the video.

Just as the last lap was coming to its end, Jamie threw Matt off the road and won the race. The drummer went back on the road to finish the course, and once that was done, he shoved his friend, “You cheating bastard!” Jamie just kept laughing, getting off the seat.

Matt rolled his eyes, completely annoyed, and then said, “Right. Al, Ella, your turn now.”

Alex took a seat on the machine to the right, “Thank God this one isn’t manual right Ellie?” He teased, turning to see her with a smirk on his face.

The three other guys laughed hard at the comment and she looked at him fake offended, “Ha-ha, so funny Alex.” Ella rolled her eyes and turned back to the screen, a couple clicks later their race started.

Silence overcame the group as they watched how Ella had left Alex behind and got a good advantage, which he never at one point managed to overcome.

Nick chuckled into his bottle, “Fucking hell, Alex you do know winning means being first not fifth, right?”

“Shut up.” The singer muttered before going back into silence to focus on the game.

Not even a minute later she had won first place by far, turning to Alex with an amused face, taking a sip of her drink and then faking a yawn to tease him. He turned to her when she made the noise, crossing the finish line at the same time.

“Damn, finally. You were taking your sweet time.” She got up and left him there, sat and humbled.

The guys were doing the worst job at trying to stop their laughter from leaving their chests, it only took Alex taking a glance from Ella to the game’s screen and back for them all to explode.

She waved at them, walking away, “Let’s go before he starts crying.” The lads quickly joined her as she continued walking into the arcade.

Alex caught up with them, coming to walk beside her. “If you had raced Matt, he would’ve definitely cried.”

The mentioned turned around quickly to refute the statement his friend had made, “If she had raced me, she would’ve lost.”

“Sure, whatever you say mate.” Alex replied and then turned to Ella. They looked into each other's eyes and shared a good quiet laugh.

The group kept walking further into the place, stumbling into the basketball hoops. Matt, of course, stopped there and turned to challenge Ella once more.

“How about this one Ellie? You against me.” The brit proposed very confidently.

She only shrugged downplaying her excitement, “Sure, why not?” She gave Alex the camera this time and placed her almost empty bottle on the table behind them.

Matt stood in front of the machine on the right, “Ready to lose Ella?”

She cackled, cracking her knuckles, “You’d be surprised.”

Nick felt like something was going to happen so he said, “Again, ten quid Ella beats Matt.” and Alex accepted the bet, recording his hand shake with the bassist. Ella glared at him and shook her head.

Matt scoffed at his friends, “Mate you’re gonna lose all your money if you keep placing shit bets.”

Ignoring Matt’s comment, she turned around and said, “I won't let you down Nick, I promise.”

With that promise, they started the game. Ella wasn’t missing any hoops and when Matt realized he just yelled, “What the actual fuck?!”

Ella laughed and kept going, the time running out and when it briefly buzzed as they only had twenty seconds left, she felt the drummer leave his place to start blocking her shots. “Matthew! Move!” She said loudly in between laughs, trying to make more points but she could only manage three more as the man in front of her wouldn’t let her.

The buzzer loudly went off and the points on the board showed how poorly Matt had performed.

He turned shocked to look at her, “Did you even miss one?!”

She threw her hair over her shoulder, smiling proudly. “Of course not, I was the best shot at my middle and high school team, that would’ve been an insult to my younger self.”

The loser crossed his arms, “That's cheating then, you’re basically a professional.”

A loud cackle left her and shaking her head, Ella walked over to his side. “Oh c’mon Helders, you aren’t pulling excuses now, are you?” She nudged him with her hip and he smiled down at her playfully.

He shrugged, pressing his lips together to try and not smile at her teasing, “I'm just saying it's an unfair advantage.”

“Sure, sure.” She rolled her eyes before they both started laughing, Nick and Jamie joining.

Alex was still holding the camera in his hand, but looking at the floor, silently fuming at how close Matt and Ella looked. Growing jealous over how much she smiled from their banter or how she seemed to make contact with him out of her own will.

He of course knew he had no right to be jealous, he was in a relationship and they were barely even friends, but he couldn’t not feel unsettled by it. There was no denying he found her attractive, and if he was single maybe he would’ve tried to chat her up but he wasn’t, so he had to bite his tongue and deal with it. Well, put it away, more like.

Ella went towards Alex and got the camcorder from him, “Thanks Al.” She said and gave him a tight lip smile.

He was confused as to why she seemed easily flirty with Matt or Nick but not with him. And maybe she didn’t even notice that she was doing it but he thought maybe that meant she didn’t even see him that way. Yet all she did around him was go shy and blush and that was enough to confuse him.

What he didn’t know—because how could he know if he had just met her once before—, was that she could never flirt when she wanted to with whom she wanted to. Yes, she could seem flirty with Nick and Matt but she actually wanted to flirt with Alex, because she found him very attractive and there was something about him that just drew her in, but she couldn’t do it for the life of her. She just blushed and was a mess with words, she didn’t know what she should say to impress him or keep him in conversation, enough for him to be the slightest interested in her.

They didn’t know better. She was hoping with time, she could learn to read him and he was wishing for the same thing, not wanting to really let the pretty girl be a thing of the past anytime soon.

As they made their way back to the table they passed a Street Fighter machine and they all took turns going against each other. Alex and Matt went three times to settle a tie—which Alex ended up winning and Matt whining about.

When Jamie dared Ella to play, she accepted but had absolutely no clue what to do. The game started and she just kept pressing buttons randomly, moving the joystick everywhere. The group was a mess of laughter and she was obviously losing in the most pathetic way but she was enjoying herself so she didn’t mind making herself look like an idiot.

Jamie was laughing harder than she had ever heard him do, “You’re wank at this!”

“I know.” Ella managed between chuckles, her eyes watering and her stomach hurting from the laughter.

Once she lost, and they all caught their breaths again, they made their way back to where the crew was sitting.

The group settled around in the empty seats, Ella giving the camera back to the directors, who thanked her. Menus were now on the table, so they got tempted into ordering some lunch at the place.

Twenty minutes of chatter later, with their hot plates now in front of them, they all shared the appetizers.

In the middle of the conversation, Nick turned to the directors and Ella who was sitting beside them. “You should all come around the show later tonight.”

Ben swallowed his food and gave him a sad smile, “We would love to but we have a call to do and things to arrange for next week's projects.” He explained pointing to himself and Aaron.

Jamie turned to her then, “What about you Ella?” and Alex telepathically thanked his friend, because he had been wanting to ask her about it for almost an hour.

Covering her mouth with her hand as she swallowed, she nodded. “I’m free tonight so sure I’ll be there.”

“Great, it starts at 8 but come over earlier so you can hang out before we go on.” The guitarist told her with a soft smile.

She nodded, excitement bubbling up in her belly, and she tried not to let it shine through her face as the conversation around the table continued.

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She tried, she really tried getting there in time but traffic had ruined her plans. Despite leaving her house at six, she had only gotten to the venue a little over twenty minutes before the show was set to start.

Finding a parking spot had been a nightmare, and getting into the venue had given her a slight headache. That’s why she made her way through the now familiar venue, with a lit cigarette between her fingers—checking of course if there were any signs that prohibited it before going in.

When she reached the hallway their room was at, she could hear the chatter bouncing on the walls.

She took a long drag of her cigarette and reached the door, letting the smoke out of her lungs through the side of her mouth before saying, “Hi everyone.” Her tone was weaker than usual because she was there all alone, and not for work. She was there as a friend, or that’s what she’d like to consider herself to them now.

“Ella!” shouted Nick, throwing his hands up in the air.

She stepped into the room, waving at the people around, hugging the band members one by one—Jamie leaving for a quick few seconds to get her a cup of wine.

The guitarist gave her the red plastic cup, now half filled with liquid, “We don’t have red today but I hope you like rosé.”

She nodded, “I do, thanks Jamie.”

Alex tested his theories then, pulling Matt’s trick. “I almost thought you weren’t coming.” His leather clad arm came around her shoulders and pulled her into his side.

Ella took a gulp of her drink, hiding her burning cheeks and wide eyes behind the cup. “Oh yeah, uhm, sorry.” She cleared her throat before explaining, “I got stuck in traffic and getting a parking space was a nightmare, there’s still so many people outside.”

Nick looked at Alex, frowning slightly as if to demand an explanation for his behavior. The singer noticed his mate’s glare but decided to clearly ignore him, his arm still around Ella and not planning to move anytime soon.

But it seemed like tonight it wouldn’t be his friends reminding him of his girlfriend that cut his time short with Ella, a few beats of time later, people started scurrying out of the room and to the stairs that led to the stage.

“Let’s go lads, you’re on in ten.” yelled someone from outside the room, their steps echoing as they left.

Alex sighed and took his arm off her, “You can watch us from the side stage if you don’t want to get in the crowd.” His suggestion came accompanied by a soft smile.

She nodded, still dazed by his long contact with her. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a few.”

They started to leave the room, drinks in hand. “Enjoy the show!” said Nick before making his way through the doorway and out of her sight.

Ella downed the rest of her wine, being cheeky and pouring herself another glass before going to the bathroom to calm down. Her burnt out cigarette being tossed into the trash.

Her reflection stared back at her flushed. The kind of flushed that she couldn’t get from just a single serving of alcohol. Ugh, Ella snap out of it! She said to herself, annoyed at how easy it was for him to get a reaction out of her. Her face only grew redder thinking about how the other guys must’ve definitely also noticed it.

Opening the tab, she let the cold water wet her hands and then patted them on her cheeks, hoping it would bring down the color on her face. She shook her hands in the air when she noticed there weren't any paper towels in the dispenser. With a deep breath and a final look at herself in the mirror, she grabbed her cup and left.

The side of the stage was a place she knew she’d love to spend her time permanently on, even though she was afraid of tripping with the amount of wires and tape that were on the floor and the speakers bursting her eardrums. She loved it.

She was dancing and singing to every song, going harder to ‘Teddy Picker’, which Alex and Jamie noticed. Jamie stepped backwards and danced with her while playing the chords swiftly.

And as the gig went by, Alex kept stealing glances over to the side at her and how she knew every line to every song. Was she a fan before we met? He was impressed by how good she had been at keeping her cool when they met her then, if that was the case. He would look for answers after they were done.

When they reached the encore and the lads got off stage, Ella went over to them, “You guys are amazing! Holy shit!”

Matt chuckled, “Thanks.” he said out of breath before chugging down a new beer bottle.

“I’m gonna go down to the side when you guys get back on. I wanna see this madness up close.” She was excited, the crowd was amazing and she wanted to be a part of it.

Alex nodded, “Just be careful with the stairs over there.”

She smiled at him and turned to make her way to the side of the crowd, in front of the barrier. Everyone was chanting for them to come back and give them another song, herself joining to the demands.

The four of them came back on stage waving, and the screams were deafening. How can they even scream that loud? Her throat was hurting just from hearing them.

“Alright Los Angeles, we’ve got three more for you. Are you ready?” Alex asked into the microphone, brushing his hair back with his right hand, the left one holding the neck of his guitar.

The crowd didn’t miss the opportunity to rip their vocal chords once more and they started playing ‘The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala’.

There was no doubt every scream that filled the room was excused, Alex’s presence was immaculate with the stage light hitting him just right. And when he looked at her and sang ‘Makes me wanna blow the candles out, just to see if you glow in the dark’, she swore she melted. He had winked at her right after, a big smile breaking on her face and she joined the chorus singing ‘Shalala’s.

Ella’s trance was broken by an arm behind her tapping her shoulder, she looked behind her and saw someone waving a big piece of paper folded to her, signaling for her to throw it on stage. She grabbed it and did her best to throw it at Alex who was currently singing. Lucky for her and the owner of the sign, he noticed and crouched down to get it.

He unfolded it and laughed into the mic, turning it around and holding it over his head for the crowd to see, while he kept singing the verses.

Helders = God

She burst out laughing, the crowd screaming at the words on the paper. He put it down after a few seconds and, when the song was over, turned to show it to his bandmates. Matt loved the praise, so he laughed into his mic and said “Cheers”.

The setlist was the same, as she realized the last two songs were just like the ones she had managed to see the night before. She enjoyed them, nevertheless, absorbing the energy from the room and dreading the fact that the concert was approaching its end.

Alex said goodbye to the crowd when ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’ was done, thanking them for coming tonight. Matt threw his sticks to the crowd, for which Ella definitely saw people fighting over. Nick and Jamie waving goodbye after setting their instruments in their stands.

She made her way back into the backstage area with a giant grin and still feeling the bass vibrating on her chest. “If that was that crazy, I can’t even begin to imagine how Glastonbury was.”

They were all sweaty—Matt having gone straight to their greenroom to take a shower—standing in the middle of the hallway waiting for her to catch up to go to their room.

“Glastonbury was mad, but tonight was pretty good.” Jamie said before lighting up a cigarette.

Alex took his chance then to interrogate her, “So Ellie, I couldn’t help but notice how you knew all the lyrics to the songs…”

Ella rolled her eyes at him, blushing slightly but this time because she had been caught. “Well, after filming ‘Brick by Brick’ I started listening to your music. You aren’t that bad, I guess.” She smirked and shrugged, downplaying it.

He shook his head, puffing his chest out to say, “We are very far from bad, actually.”

She nodded and then sarcastically added, “And from humble too.”

Nick and Jamie laughed at the witty remark, Alex sticking to shaking his head and looking down to hide his grin.

“Smart-arse.” The singer said after picking his head up.

When they got back into the room, she went over to the trash to throw away her cup. Looking at the time on her phone and she found herself sad knowing she had to leave soon, she turned to them with a pout on her face, “Pains me to say this, but I gotta get going.”

“Awh, Ellie.” Nick pouted as well and went over to hug her.

She hugged him back, “Sorry guys, but I hope to see you soon.” She patted Nicks back twice before turning over to Jamie who had his arms out waiting for her embrace. “Thank you for having me tonight.”

“It’s no problem, we really appreciate you coming.” Jamie replied while rubbing circles on her back.

She started to walk over to Alex who was still standing near the door to hug him goodbye but he was quick to say, “I’ll walk you to your car.”

She waved her hand dismissing his idea, he didn’t have to go out of his way to do that, “No, don’t worry–”

But he insisted, “Yes, c’mon. I’ll go with you.” to which she gave him a playful roll of her eyes and a smile.

“Alright then.” She turned to wave back at the boys again, “Say bye to Matt for me?”

Both of them nodded and waved back at her, watching her and Alex disappear through the door.

Alex and Ella were walking in silence for a few seconds, their shoes thumping against the floor but she broke it very soon after she found herself thinking back to the gig and the songs she was growing obsessed with, “I’m actually really excited for Suck it and See.” She put some hair behind her ear, looking at him.

“Do you wanna get a copy and some merch?” He asked suddenly, she got confused at the offer.

Frowning all she could mutter was, “Huh?”

He just laughed at her reaction, “I can get you on the PR list so you can get it delivered when it comes out.”

Ella’s eyes lit up, an excited grin breaking on her face, “Oh my God, would you really?”

“Of course, it’s really no big deal. We’re mates now, gotta get the mates perks right?” Alex said, pulling his cigarette pack from his pocket.

“Oh I would love that, thank you.” she nodded as she accepted. Mates, that’s what we were, mates, and she was fine with it.

He lit up the stick between his lips and blew some smoke out, “It’s no problem, really.”

She kind of wished the walk could’ve been longer, but they reached her car faster than she expected. It was time to say goodbye and she didn’t really know how to act. She wasn’t going to see him until the next music video which still had no proper date, just an approximation of it being in August—two months from then.

“Well,” Ella started, fumbling with the keys in her hands, “Until the next music video I guess?”

Alex nodded, taking the cigarette out of his lips to talk, “Until the next music video.”

She unlocked her car, opening the door slightly and turned before getting inside to give him a brief hug, “See you soon then, Al.”

Her scent engulfed him as soon as she opened her car and even more when she wrapped her arms around him. He reciprocated the embrace and the contact was making him get stuck on his thoughts, taking a good five seconds before replying, “See you soon Ellie.”

She smiled as she let go of him, getting inside her car and closing the door. She ignited the engine of her car and started backing up, waving at him before changing gears and stepping on the gas, leaving him behind, with half a cigarette left to smoke and somehow her perfume overpowering the burning tobacco.

He was sure he would think of her for far longer than acceptable, and he would be counting down the days until the next music video was set to be done.

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A/N: What did you think about this one then? I hope you liked seeing their dynamics grow, they are all so much fun to write! From now on chapters are coming every other week, so part 3 will be posted on the 24th! This is just so we can have plenty of Constant Repeat to last us a while and I can finish the series without rushing it, hope you understand x Thank you so much for reading again, I truly appreciate it. See you soon!!!!!

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