#some of you expected this I'm sure

[egophiliac]

missed the mark by (looks at calendar) uhhh. hm. but I really wanted to do something for the 5th anniversary! happy five years to these idiots 🎉

[forgettable-au]

FORGETTABLE-AU (Page 48-52)

FOUND.

[BEGINNING] [PREVIOUS] [CONTINUE]

[outer-andromeda]

Wanted to add on to the "Raph avoiding sleep at all costs" thing with doodles I had made earlier today oop

TWs - SH (technically), blood, panic attack

... Raph has reoccurring nightmares after the events of Chapter 3. He can't get out of his head the face he saw in that one tape while he was hallucinating... And it doesn't help that his mind keeps twisting it into something worse and worse every time.

He wakes up in a cold sweat. Trembling. Breathing heavily. His heart thumping hard in his chest. And he wants to scream and sob. But he can't. He doesn't want to wake up the kids.

He's found... Ways to cope. Even if they aren't the safest. It hurts for a while, but at least the toys get the rest that they need.

So uh ... Yeah. When he does get some rest, it's... Usually short-lived. He really tries his hardest to hide it from the kids, not wanting to put another burden on their shoulders, but uh...

Yeah. Catnap ain't having any of that bullshit.

Edit : I'm realizing how ironic it is that Catnap is the one that knows about Raph's nightmares and wants to make sure he gets rest when he was literally the being behind said nightmares in the first place 💀

[blackkatdraws2]

This little NPC is lost. The Narrator [Black] has come to guide her back to where she needs to be. [Blank Scripts AU]

I imagine Black would be a lot more tolerant toward his NPCs since they're basically just the Dungeons spawns, and by extension, his own creations.

[If you're familiar with manhwas / manhuas that features the dungeon / system genre, you'd be able to understand this AU a lot easier. The majority of my inspiration for worldbuilding came from those specific genres.]

[NOTE: 'Dungeon' is just another term for the Parable. Technically, Black owns a Dungeon and the Parable is just a small part of it. The Dungeon itself is much, much larger.]

For context, the comic below references this post about the Dungeon's children/guard dogs.

[They're more like the immune system since all they do is make sure the (body) is safe.]

[The reason the Narrator [Black] considers them his children is that the Dungeon is feeding off his energy and in turn shares the 'nutrients' to the monsters it produces, which transforms them into an image that resembles his power.]

And the old man below is Joseph!

Joseph is NOT AN NPC! He is a person who exists outside of the Dungeon!

[There are two separate 'worlds' for this AU. Inside the Dungeon (where most of the game-like stuff is happening) and the world outside (pretty much their normal world.)]

[There is a secret third world, and that's our world. Our reality.]

These characters are not actually important or anything, I just made them to make the AU feel more lively. To make a world that exists, you know?

When the Narrator [Black] first established himself in their world, he found a growing problem with homelessness. Not understanding human norms or why this has become a problem in the first place, he offers (tricks) them into working for him as janitors for the Dungeon and they accept for the money.

Most of them left after they got paid, but Joseph was one of the people who stayed. He doesn't have anywhere else to go and has no ambitions in life. He just wishes to live a peaceful life with food and a roof over his head.

Joseph defaults to referring to the Narrator [Black] with feminine terms due to his appearance despite his voice. The Narrator [Black] is not the type to care for such terms anyway so he doesn't care how other people refer to him as long as there's respect.

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

This post focuses more on the worldbuilding and background aspects of the AU! There are a lot more in store for the Blank Scripts AU, and I want to explore more on how the characters might interact with their surroundings and how this would work to make a world that makes sense.

It would be so cool if people made self-inserts or OCs for my AU actually. I'd love to see how you guys would work with my stuff. Play around with it like a barbie world for your little barbie dolls. Be canon compliant, be canon divergent, who cares, have fun.

[vaguely-concerned]

the barista lady in the treviso café fucking giggles every time you buy the fancy coffee lucanis likes from her btw. can't believe the game is calling out rook and me like this

[slayerdurge]

You know, I think one of my favorite things about a super evil play through is actually how hard it is to net approval with even the most potentially evil-leaning companions.

Astarion talks a big game about how much he likes violence and evil, and he does often give you approval for those types of actions, but you get this distinct impression from interactions with him that he's just sort of put on a permanent mask. I saw this post going around that Astarion dislikes it when you are very benevolent and heroic because he's thinking "How can there be so much goodness in the world but none of it was ever for me? It's not fair." And I think that's true. And I think when you actually take him down the road he claims he wants to go down, he takes on this mentality of "Ah, yes. Of course. I knew it. The world is without love." And he tries to pretend that it doesn't bother him but there are moments you can see it breaking through that it does. That's why I'm at the end of Act 1 of nonstop evil and I can't get him past medium approval.

On the other hand, I can't even get Shadowheart past neutral approval. She goes back and forth on giving me approval and disapproval, and, in my experience, she does the same exact thing in a good play through. I always find it hardest to predict what Shadowheart will approve of or disapprove of because she's so inconsistent. I think this is because her whole story is about the fact that she doesn't know who she is. I mean, she literally can't remember much about her life, to begin with. But also, she's in a state of indecision, not only does she not remember who she is, but she hasn't decided yet who she wants to be. Or more precisely she feels like who she wants to be is not a real option. She is definitely the companion (of the ones I actually had) who reacted most poorly to raiding the Grove. She got drunk and she went off about how it's not a real victory if you're killing people who can't even defend themselves. But then the next day she acted totally different. She was sober, and she took on this mentality of "Goblins killed some people. They didn't kill us. Time to move on." So she reasserted this control over herself that she has on most of the time, that had mostly only slipped because she was so upset and because she was drunk.

Lae'zel has been the easiest for me to get approval with. She got up to high approval very quickly, and she's currently at very high approval and stays there consistently. I think this is because she's way more honest than either Astarion or Shadowheart. She really is what she says she is. She's ruthless. And I don't actually mean that she inherently has to be evil. It is very possible to take her down a good path and convince her to embrace ideals of freedom. But I do think that her persona is far more honest than either Astarion or Shadowheart's is. And I think this makes sense because she was raised in a whole society of believers in "might makes right" who have believed in that for many generations and she was given chances to excel in that society rather than completely victimized. This is very different from Astarion because he was always a victim and never had an opportunity to actually strive for power. It is likely more similar to what Shadowheart would have experienced, though I think her memory loss complicates this, but it also just seems like Shadowheart doesn't take to ruthlessness as naturally. They both had to adopt that mentality because it was the only way they could survive, but I think Lae'zel is just better at it because she's just a way more straight-forward person. I think it's also why if she does decide to go against Vlaakith, it's an instant 180-degree change in her allegiance. She doesn't have to waver like Shadowheart does in regards to Shar, she just goes "This is what I believe now." and just switches.

Anyway, yeah... you learn so much about them on an evil play through... can't wait to torture them some more.

[the-mpreg-guy]

Your ask and follow up post about Dean being forced into the role of an idealised Mary mother figure and Sam perpetuating Johns parentification of Dean because that was the version of Dean he relied on and grew up with, thus stepping into the role of 'John' literally blew my hair back,,, MOTHER BROTHER DEAN, IM CLUTCHING MY HEAD IM CRAWLING UP THE WALLS!!!!!! Also, in a way, I think Dean stepping into the role of nurturer and caregiver (in essence, a maternal role) for Sam is often the root of peoples exploration of Dean and his gendered identity. Like, on one hand he's this hyper masculine man's man gun toting hunter, but on the other he's the closest thing his baby brother has to a maternal presence. Which begs the question, which act is a performance? (BOTH!!! BOTH ARE GENDERED PERFORMANCES) Am I making sense???

This has been sitting in my inbox for a while bc I enjoy rotating it. A lot of people like to bring up Dean perpetuating anger and violence (which Imo he doesn't in the way people say he does but that's another post), but they constantly miss the fact that the most damaging cycle that Sam and Dean BOTH perpetuate is Dean's parentification. It's damaging for Dean because he's never going to pick his best interests over protecting Sam, and it's damaging for Sam because it locks him in this cycle of "why won't you trust me" without ever setting himself up as a peer to Dean.

Re: gender performance, I do find it fascinating that John's parentification in Dean manifests in Dean overcompensating in his masculinity. You could argue that it's John specifically modeling that for him, BUT I could also see a case for Dean trying to balance the act being Sam's parent and John's Mary replacement with trying to be his own person and it manifests in him modeling his behavior off what he assumes masculinity should be.

[hyakunana]

Interrupting all my chores for a very important event

[iamamythologicalcreature]

2024 Round-Up and Review

2024, aka The Year I Discovered I Love Drawing Baz With Long Hair.

But also.

Honestly?

(Yeah, I'm going to be honest. Yeah, it's going to be a long post. Buuuut it's my blog, so here we go!)

This past year was rough. Really rough. In many ways as difficult as 2020, and in some ways, even harder than that. I lost my specialized medical care after 2023, and my health tanked in 2024. Medication changes, chronic illness/pain, and the hardest thing of all was... this idea I seemed to have that if I could just fake it enough, I could make it. Like I could deny my disability into non-existence. Pretend it away.

Instead, I ended up pushing myself past the breaking point, with the worst possible timing ever.

And THEN (when I desperately needed to stop and rest), I packed up my life and moved across a continent. (I hadn't moved since college. So I thought I'd move and it'd be done. That was wrong. Ahem. I'm still moving in...)

But the GOOD that happened last year came in the form of friendship. That's not just a line. My friends were my lifeline. To those friends who stuck it out with me even when things were far from easy, thank you. You are the most incredible people I know, and your friendship has given me reasons and opportunities to feel joy and hope where I might not otherwise have done.

Okay. So. The ROUND-UP is... *drum roll*... Under the cut!

At first I was a bit bummed to see I'd only finished 9 pieces of art during the entire year. But since I am being honest... I know I did my best, and so clearly the best I could do last year was nine pieces of art. So many of those pieces were attached to amazing projects, though! I got to do several collaborations with some truly amazing human beings, and I also got to run my very first fest for the fandom! So I'm calling it good.

Now, finally, the art links:

(I won't be including works in progress on this list, as I still hope to finish them at some point XD)

January: Oh my God, January. I didn't finish anything in January, but I worked on a lot.

February:

Tis better to give than to receive - This was my contribution to Erotic Grope Fest, and it was my first time doing anything NSFW. It's pretty tame, all things considered, but I think it still fit the mission. Also ended up posting a high-res version of this on AO3. Because. I mean. Come on. XD

March:

Three lost boys (found) - I started out as a beta reader for @mooncello's inspired take on Neverland, but by the time I received chapter 2 I was very nearly begging to be able to illustrate it. I'd had this particular image in my mind after reading the matching scene in chapter one, but had tried to suppress the inspiration. Silly me. I'm so glad I gave in. This is a favorite of mine.

April:

Keeping Neverland - (Technically posted on Tumblr in May, but on AO3 in April, so...) Illustrating @mooncello's writing again, and this one was a challenge! But one I wholeheartedly embraced. I wanted to echo Baz's journey as an artist with my illustrations, so where I used pencil sketching for the chapter one illustration, I went for a finished charcoal drawing, here. Digital charcoal, it turns out, can be just as difficult as the real deal. Slightly less messy, though. (I'm very proud of this finished piece.) Also where I continued my exploration of Baz's long hair. XD

May:

A rough sketch for a rough night - It feels a little off to be posting this sketch in my art round-up, considering the emotional inspiration, but truth be told I ended up liking this sketch quite a lot. I also learned a couple things, from both the events of that night (not my finest moment) and the drawing of the sketch (hey putting my feelings into art is a good idea). So I think ultimately this little sketch deserves to be included on this list.

June:

Teenage Dream - I posted this on Tumblr in June, for my birthday, but I actually did the art at the beginning of the year for the Valentine's Day exchange on the Carry On server. I rarely finish anything to this degree, and am immensely proud of it. That said, I ended up using it for so many things last year, I'd be okay to not look at it again for awhile. (I called it "Teenage Dream" because it made me think of a daydream Baz might have had as a teenager - now made real with Simon by his side. Cause I'm a sucker for their romance >.> )

Illustration from The Eternal Life of Baz Pitch - So I'm not sure how I got lucky enough to earn a special preview of @monbons's story, but I knew I couldn't read it in pieces. So she let me read the whole thing. It was very cool. I read it all at once I think? And when I was done I crashed Monica's DMs to yell at her about it. But then I drew this picture. (While I was chatting with her, even, and casually asking her about cherry blossoms so I could draw them the way she imagined them. It was very fun.) Now we're friends. XD (Check out the fic - now posted in entirety!)

July: Uh. Migraines. Just migraines. I had to pull back from the fandom a lot, and stopped participating in a lot of online activities. Boo.

August: Sketched concepts for CORB, and packed.

September: I moved over 4000 miles.

October: Everything I worked on in October ended up debuting in...

November:

Carry On Through the Ages! Okay, as stressed and sick as I was, I have no regrets about taking on COTTA. It was AMAZING. So much wonderful content! It was SO GOOD to contribute to the fandom, and to do that with history geeking? Dream come true. I also dipped into my previous area of expertise (picture manipulation) and did some cursed paintings to promote it. Mona Baz, Stormchaser Gothic, Mademoiselle Wellbelove, and Iconic Icon Simon.

A Prophesied Rivalry - Another dream come true was collaborating with @monbons for COTTA! I loved talking ideas with her, and she was so supportive when I hit road blocks, too. I love Ancient Egyptian art, and this was as much a love letter to that ancient art style as it was to my beloved Snowbaz. (I did a ridiculous amount of research to do this piece.) (And now I have Egyptian Baz and Simon in my new apartment. Extreme Bonus.)

Snow on Ice Illustration - Getting paired with @leithillustration for CORB was like winning the creative collaboration lottery. Not only did they grasp my concept from the get-go, but they've taken it in a creative and exciting direction. Also, we've become good friends, which is the very best possible outcome for a collaboration. (You should check out their story if you haven't already!)

(Snow-kitty also got very sick at the end of November, which halted a lot of my progress on some WIPs. It was scary for a bit, but I am so happy to say he has fully recovered.)

December:

Snowflake Exchange presents More Than a Footnote - I kind of love that I started the year illustrating one of @mooncello's stories, and ended it with an illustration from another! I was so excited to pull Heath's name from the proverbial hat for the exchange. I'd wanted to draw something from More Than a Footnote since the first time Heath told me about it. I completely love Dev and Niall at this point, so I hope to play with them some more in the future! (BTW Heath I think you're one of my muses hope that's okay XD)

SO. Yeah, the year was often a hard one, but a lot of good happened in spite of all the bad. The good was even more valuable for daring to happen in the midst of so much blah. (And boy howdy, did I get a lot of material to learn from.)

In 2025, I think I'm going to focus more on accepting my limits. Like, I can still work on improving my health and functionality, but I really need to try and determine when I need to stop. That has its own learning curve, but I have to start somewhere! I'm also working on vision therapy, which I'm doing on my own since I can't afford the out-of-pocket expense. Still... So far, so good. Fingers crossed!

Creatively, I think 2025 will be the year where I get to work on projects I started in 2023 and 2024, and I find that quite exciting because those are ideas I genuinely loved. I also hope to bring some other ideas I've had for a very long time to life. (Finally.) I hope, hope, hope! And hey, if I get to do more collabs? That would be awesome, too. (Carry On Through the Ages will be returning, as well!)

Thank you to these lovely people for tagging me in on this round-up, and for remembering me despite my frequent absence!

@emeryhall, @rimeswithpurple, @prettygoododds, @artsyunderstudy, @noblecorgi, @alexalexinii, @best--dress, @j-nipper-95, @roomwithanopenfire, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @imagineacoolusername, @mooncello, @whatevertheweather, @thewholelemon, @youarenevertooold, @monbons

And to everyone who is still tagging me on wipsday posts, other things, commented, any of that! Thank you. It means a lot to me. Hello's and How-Do's and general well-wishes to:

@drowninginships, @aristocratic-otter, @that-disabled-princess, @leithillustration, @bookish-bogwitch, @theimpossibledemon, @fiend-for-culture, @bazzybelle, @ic3-que3n, @blackberrysummerblog, @run-for-chamo-miles, @shrekgogurt, @confused-bi-queer, @hushed-chorus, @cutestkilla, @skeedelvee, @carryonsimoncarryonbaz, @wellbelesbian, @facewithoutheart, @ileadacharmedlife,, @raenestee, @supercutedinosaurs, @fatalfangirl, @palimpsessed, @martsonmars, @brilla-brilla-estrellita, @theearlgreymage

And anyone else who actually read my extremely long post. XD

[residentialsinyomakai]

HELLO!!!! mini art dump thingy for y'all,,,, haven't been in muuuch of a drawing mood but I have things I've made for other things! except the last two; those are for fun.

[flickeringflame216]

.

[violinist-rachel]

I heard Kasu was ripped... I heard Kasu had a six-pack....

[threepoint14art]

FHS Shipping Week day 1

February 14: height difference - duet - animalistic (AND ALSO ONNIES BIRTHDAY!)

they have it all B) height difference, duet AND animalistic. I love using all of the prompts it makes me feel so accomplished

I don't have a lot of commentary on the drawing itself except for the fact that i LOVE making Deuz tall and that I like making those two really dear to eachother <3 the wood floor with the curtains and all of that is a reference to this:

And I know i didn't make onnie SING so i think it doesn't really count as a duet but I couldnt figure it out ok!!!!! and also I DO like to think they'd love to sing together... If i can get ANYTHING out of "una amistad" (song i notoriously do NOT like) is that Onnie can sing and they can sing together <3

[luna-loveboop]

A smile from a smiles cuz you made me smile today

:)

Tbycbdufbzufhsifhd YAY!! :D

I give pictures of my doggos when I don't know what to say so

They even sat down for a picture for you, and my brothers dog joined too so. puppies :D

The one on the left is my service doggo Stitch- he has purple ears and takes photo taking very seriously. Sandy is my curly smiley one- she's very chaotic and I love her. Duke in the back is my brothers doggie- he wanted hugs because he always wants hugs.

I'm so glad you say I made you smile- you make me smile all the time and that's not even easy to do so. yay :P

A smile for smiles:

:)

[sofoulandfairaday]

me: of course, people are allowed to have their own opinions and headcanons. all takes that are well-justified are valid.

someone: bellatrix was insan-

me: shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck UP

[suddencolds]

The Worst Timing | [5/5]

we made it!!! part 5/5 + a mini epilogue (5.6k words) at long last 🥹 (aka the installment in which i remember that h/c has a c in it in addition to the h, haha.) [part 1] is here!

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

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

—

The world comes back to him in pieces—first the wooden panels of the ceiling, the sloped wooden beams. The coldness of the room, the slight, monotonous whir of the air circulating through one of the vents overhead.

He’s leaned up against the wall, seated on the floor in the hallway, and Vincent is kneeling beside him, his eyebrows furrowed.

It takes him a moment to realize where he is. He had been about to head back to the courtyard, hadn’t he? He doesn’t have much memory of anything that happened after, but judging by Vincent’s reaction, he thinks he can probably guess.

“Hi,” Yves says, for lack of a better thing to say. 

He watches a complicated set of expressions flicker through Vincent’s face—relief, first, before it turns to something distinctly less neutral.

“You’re awake,” Vincent says. He turns away, for a moment. Yves notes the clench of his jaw, the tightness of his grip—his fingers white around Yves’s sleeve.

“Was I out for long?”

“A couple minutes.”

Yves wants to say something. He should say something. Anything to lighten the tension, anything to get the point across that this is all just an unlucky miscalculation, on his part. It really isn’t something Vincent should have to be worried about. 

“I’m sorry for making you wait,” he starts. Really, what he means is, I’m sorry for making you worry about me. “I promise I’mb fine.”

The look on Vincent’s face, then, is something that Yves hasn’t seen before. 

“Why do you have to—” he starts, frustration rising in his voice. He sighs, his jaw set. “I don’t understand why you—” He drops his hand from Yves’s sleeve, and it’s then when Yves notices the stiffness to his shoulders, the tension in his posture. He runs a hand through his hair, lets out another short, exasperated breath. “You’re not fine.” 

It’s strange, Yves thinks, to see him like this—Vincent, who usually never wears his emotions on his face, looks clearly displeased, now. 

“Hey,” Yves says, softly. He reaches out to take Vincent’s hand. Vincent goes very still with the contact, but he doesn’t say anything. “I—”

Fuck. His body seems to always pick the worst time for unwanted interjections. He wrenches his hand away just in time to smother a sneeze into his sleeve, though it’s forceful enough to leave him slightly lightheaded. 

“Stay here,” Vincent says, getting to his feet. “Lay down if you get dizzy again.”

Yves blinks. “Where are you going?”

“To tell the others that we’re leaving.”

Yves wants to protest. Dinner is already halfway over. It’s not as if the festivities are particularly strenuous. They’ll probably move inside after dinner, where it’s warmer.

But he thinks better of it. Judging by how exhausted he still feels, how much his head aches, it probably wouldn’t be wise to push it. 

“Don’t tell them about this,” he says.

Vincent’s eyebrows furrow. “What?”

“Aimee is going to worry if she finds out,” Yves says, dropping his head to his knees. He doesn’t want to look at Vincent, doesn’t want to know what expression is on his face. “Just—let them have this night. It’s—supposed to be perfect.” I really wanted it to be perfect, he almost adds. There’s a strange tightness to his throat as he says it, a strange heaviness to his chest.

He knows what it means. If, after he’s tried so hard to do his part, their evening still ends up ruined on his own accord, he’s not sure if he could live with himself after.

For a moment, Vincent doesn’t say anything at all.

“Okay,” he says, at last. “Just stay here.”

And then he heads down the hallway. The door at the end of the reception hall swings shut behind him. Yves thinks he should be relieved, but he finds that he doesn’t feel much other than exhausted.

—

The ride home on the shuttle is silent. Vincent sits next to him, even though all of the other seats are empty. Yves thinks the proximity is probably inadvisable. He opens his mouth to say as much, and then shuts it.

Vincent sits and stares straight ahead, his posture stiff, and doesn’t say anything for the entirety of the ride. It’s strange. Yves is no stranger to silence—Vincent is, after all, a coworker, and Yves has endured more than a few quiet elevator rides and quiet team lunches at the office, but it’s strange because it’s Vincent.

Vincent, who usually takes care to make conversation with him, whenever it’s just the two of them. Vincent, who stayed up through the lull of antihistamines a couple months ago to talk to Yves, until Yves had given him explicit permission to go to sleep.

Yves tries not to think about it. Through the haze of his fever, everything feels unusually bright—the interior of the shuttle, with its leather seats and metal handrails.

The shuttle stops just outside the main entrance to their hotel. Just before he gets to the doors, he stumbles. Vincent’s hand shoots out, instinctively, to steady him.

“Sorry,” Yves says, a little sheepishly. It’s not that he’s dizzy. The roads are just uneven, and it’s dark. “I can walk.”

But Vincent doesn’t let go—not for the entirety of the walk through the cool, air-conditioned lobby, through the hallways to the hotel elevators. Not when the elevator stops at their floor, not when they pass by the grid of wooden doors leading up to their room. 

Before Yves can manage to reach for his keycard, Vincent has already swiped them in, scarily efficient. He slides the card back into his pocket, pushes the door open. 

“Thadks for walking me back,” Yves says. “Sorry you couldn’t stay longer. You mbust’ve been halfway through dinner.”

“I already finished eating,” Vincent says.

“Even dessert?” Yves says. “I think Aimee got everyone creme brulee from one of the local bakeries. I was excited to try it. Maybe Leon can save us some.” he muffles a yawn into his hand. It’s too early to be sleeping, but his pull out bed looks very inviting right now.

“Take the bed,” Vincent says.

Yves blinks at him. “What?”

“The bed’s warmer.”

There’s absolutely no way he’s going to let Vincent take the pull-out bed in his place, Yves thinks blearily. He’s spent the past couple nights muffling sneezes into the covers—if there’s anything he’s certain of, it’s that he really, really doesn’t want Vincent to catch this.

“I dod’t think we should switch,” he says, sniffling. “I’ve been sleeping here ever sidce I started coming down with this. I’mb— hHeh-!” He veers away, raising an elbow to his face. “hh—HHEh’IIDZschH’-iEEW! Ugh, I’mb pretty sure I contaminated it.”

“We can both take the bed, if you’d prefer,” Vincent says. As if it’s that simple.

Yves opens his mouth to protest—is Vincent really okay with sharing a bed with him?—but then he thinks about Vincent finding him in the hallway—the stricken expression on his face, then, his eyes wide, his jaw clenched—and thinks better of himself. 

Instead, he lets Vincent lead him to the bedroom. The bed is neatly made—the covers drawn, the pillows propped up against the headboard.

“Lay down,” Vincent says, pushing lightly down on his shoulders. Yves sits. He peels off his suit jacket, folds it, and sets it aside on the nightstand.

“Hey, I kdow that was sudden,” he says, in reference to earlier. “I’mb sorry you had to witness it. I… probably shouldn’t have pushed it.”

Vincent says nothing, to that.

Yves lays down, shuts his eyes. “You didn’t have to accompady me home, you know.”

Silence. He exhales, burrowing deeper into the covers. “It’s not as bad as it looks, seriously.”

He opens his mouth to say more. He has to say something, he thinks, to convince Vincent that it’s really not that big of a deal. Anything, to assuage that look on Vincent’s face.

But he’s so tired. He can feel the exhaustion now that he’s finally let himself lay down. The bed is traitorously comfortable, with its soft feather pillows and its fluffy layers of blankets, and Vincent was right—it really is warmer.

He feels the press of a hand on his forehead, feels the cold, unyielding pressure. Feels gentle, calloused fingers brush the hair out of his face.

“Sleep,” Vincent says, firmly. 

And Yves—

Yves, already half gone, is powerless, when Vincent says it like that.

—

When he wakes, it’s just barely bright outside. He takes it in—the first few rays of sunlight, streaking through the curtains. The bed, a little more well-cushioned than the pullout bed he’d spent the past few nights on—higher up and decisively sturdier. He blinks.

Beside him, seated on a chair he recognizes as belonging to the desk at the opposite end of the room, is Vincent.

Vincent, awake. Yves isn’t sure if he’s slept at all. He certainly doesn’t look tired, at first glance, but closer inspection reveals a little more. It’s evident in the way he holds his shoulders, stiff, and perhaps a little tired, as if there’s been tension sitting in them all night. 

He’s reading a book. Whether he bought it at the convenience store downstairs, or on one of the other days when Yves was busy running errands for the wedding and Vincent was elsewhere, or whether it’d been sitting in his suitcase since the start of the vacation, Yves doesn’t know.

“How’s the book?” Yves says.

His throat is dry, he realizes, for the way it makes him cough, afterwards. Vincent’s eyes meet his, unerringly. He shuts the book, sets it down on the bedside table.

“It’s a little boring,” Vincent says. “How’s the fever?”

Before Yves can answer, Vincent leans forward and presses the back of his hand to Yves’s forehead. His touch is unerringly gentle, and Yves allows himself to look. 

Vincent’s eyebrows are furrowed, his eyes narrowed slightly in concentration, and Yves wonders, suddenly, if he’s been this worried for awhile, now. If he’s been this worried ever since he’d walked them both back into the hotel room last night.

“I’m fine,” Yves says. 

It has the opposite effect he intends it to.

Vincent’s expression shutters. “The last time you said that, you passed out in front of me,” he says, withdrawing his hand with a frown. “So forgive me if I don’t entirely believe you.”

Yves sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. It’s a fair point. “I’m usually more reliable whed it comes to these things.”

“What things?”

“Kdowing my limits.”

Vincent says, “I think you knew your limits. I think you just didn’t want to honor them, because you decided the wedding took precedence.”

He’s… frustrated, Yves realizes. Still. He’s sure he can guess why. Their fake relationship does not extend to Vincent having to look after him, to Vincent having to drop everything in the middle of a wedding, of all things, to take him home. To Vincent having to worry about all this—the fever Yves knows he has, now, and the bed he’s currently taking up—on top of everything else. As if being in a foreign country, surrounded by people he knows almost exclusively through Yves, who, for the most part, converse in a language he barely speaks, wasn’t already enough work on its own.

And Yves gets it. He hadn’t wanted this to happen, either. He’d told himself that if this—this pretend relationship, this pretense—is contingent upon both of them playing their part, the least he can do is be self-sufficient outside of it.

But now—because Vincent is here with him, and because they share a hotel room—all of this is now Vincent’s problem, too, by extension.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” he asks.

Vincent smiles at him, a little wryly, as if the answer is evident. 

“You gave up your bed just for me to steal it,” Yves says, in an attempt to lighten the mood. “It’s really comfortable, and all, but I’mb pretty sure they make these kinds of beds for two.”

“Is that a proposition?” Vincent says.

“Maybe.” Yves thinks it through. “Realistically, probably ndot, until I have a chance to shower.” He’s still dressed in his dress shirt and slacks from yesterday, a little embarrassingly—he should probably get changed. “Speaking of which, I should do that soon, so you don’t feel the need to stay up all night reading—” Yves leans forward, squints at the book cover on the nightstand. “—Hemingway? Somehow, I didn’t expect you to be the type.”

“I’m not,” Vincent says. “Victoire lent it to me.”

“Oh,” Yves says, trying to think of when Vincent would’ve had time to ask her for a recommendation. “Yeah. She’s—” He twists aside, ducking into his elbow. “hHEH’IIDzschh-EEW! snf-! She’s quite the literary reader. Is it really that boring?”

“I can see why people think the transparency of his prose is appealing,” Vincent says. “But I’m fifty pages in, and nothing has happened.”

“Isd’t that the sort of thing Hemingway can get away with, since he’s straightforward about it?”

“In a short story, maybe,” Vincent says. Then: “You are trying to make me feel better.”

Ah.

Yves laughs. “Where in the world did you get that idea?”

Vincent just sighs. “I would be exceptionally unobservant not to notice when I’ve seen you do the same thing all this week.”

“What?”

“Telling people that you’re fine,” Vincent says. “And distracting them when they don’t believe you.”

Yves doesn’t think that’s entirely accurate. It’s not like he was trying to be dishonest. It’s just that it was never the most important thing to address.

“Distracting is a bit disingenuous.”

“I don’t get it,” Vincent says, with a frown. “You’re so insistent on putting yourself last, even when you were obviously—” He sighs. There it is—that expression again, the one that makes itself evident through the furrowed eyebrows, the tense set of his jaw—frustration, and maybe something else. “You’re surrounded by people who care about you, so why not just—”

“There are plenty of things more important than how I’mb feeling,” Yves says.

“I don’t think that’s true.”

But of course it is, Yves thinks. A wedding is a once in a lifetime occurrence. An illness is nothing, in the face of that.

“I promised I’d be there,” he says, because when it really comes down to it, it’s true. He had no intention of going back on his word. “I didn’t want to be the one to let them down. Is that so hard to believe?” He reaches up with a hand to massage his temples. His head aches, even though he’s slept for long enough that he feels like it ought to feel a little better, by now. “It’s already bad enough that I had to drag you into this.” 

“You didn’t drag me into this,” Vincent says. “I came on my own volition.”

Yves tries a laugh, but it’s humorless. “I made you leave halfway through the wedding dinner.”

“I’d already finished eating.”

“Ndot to mention, you practically had to carry me upstairs.”

“Because you’re ill.”

“That’s no excuse.” Yves wants to say more, but he finds himself beholden to a tickle in the back of his throat—irritatingly present, until he concedes to it by ducking into his elbow to cough, and cough.

When he looks up, blinking tears out of his vision, Vincent isn’t looking at him.

“You should get some rest,” he says, simply.

Yves can tell—just by the way he says it—that there is no argument to him, anymore. Just like that, Vincent is back to being closed off—poised and perfectly, infuriatingly unreadable, just like he is at work, his face so carefully a mask of indifference, even in the most stressful presentations, the most frustrating disagreements. Yves wants none of it.

 “Hey,” he says. A part of him itches to crack a joke, to change the subject—anything to take away this air of seriousness. A part of him wants to reach out, again—to take Vincent’s hand, entwine their fingers; to reassure him, again, that he’s really fine.

“I’m sorry,” he says, instead. Maybe it’s the fever that loosens his tongue. Maybe it’s just a combination of everything.

He can feel Vincent’s eyes on him, still. Vincent has always held a sort of intensity to him, a quiet sort of perceptiveness. “I’m not sure I follow,” Vincent says.

“This visit was supposed to be fun for you,” he says. “And now you’re here, stuck in the hotel room because of me, even though today was supposed to be for sightseeing.”

It doesn’t feel like enough. What can he say to make it enough? There’s a strange ache in his chest, a strange, crushing pressure. Yves is horrified to find his eyes stinging. He’s held it together for so long, he thinks. Why now? Why, when Vincent is right here?

But a part of him knows, too. Of course traveling to a different country would be more involved than going to a party, or spending an evening at a stranger’s house. But there was a time when he thought this could really just be a fun excursion for the both of them—half a week in his family’s home country, with someone who he thoroughly enjoys spending time with. 

And now, because of this untimely illness—or because of his own short-sightedness in managing it—it isn’t. He didn’t get to stay through dinner, didn’t get to wish Aimee and Genevieve a good rest of their night, like he’d planned to. He has no idea if things went smoothly in his absence. To make matters worse, Vincent is here, having endured a sleepless night, instead of anywhere else.

And really, when he thinks about it, who does have to blame for all of this, except himself?

“I didn’t mean for it to turn out like this,” he says. “So I’m sorry.” He resists the urge to swipe a hand over his eyes—surely, he thinks, that would give him away.

He turns away. It’s convenient, he thinks, that the embarrassing sniffle that follows could be attributed to something else. 

“You’ve been nothing but accommodating to me, this whole visit,” Vincent says. “If anything, I should’ve insisted that you take the bed earlier. You haven’t been sleeping well, have you?”

He says it with such certainty. Yves opens his mouth to protest this—or to apologize, for all the times he must’ve kept Vincent up, including but not limited to last night—but Vincent presses on.

“You spent all of yesterday morning helping everyone get ready, and when I got back, you apologized for not being around—as if the reason why you weren’t around wasn’t that you were so busy making sure everything was fine for everyone else.” Vincent pauses, takes in a slow, measured breath. Yves is surprised to hear that he sounds… distinctly angry, in a way that Yves is not used to hearing.

“And then you showed up to the rehearsal and the wedding, even though you weren’t feeling well. And you still think you have something to apologize for? Are you even hearing yourself?” Yves hears the creak of the chair as he stands, the sound of quiet footsteps. Feels the dip of the bed as Vincent takes a seat at the edge of it. 

“You know, after you left the dinner table, Genevieve was talking about how much she liked your speech? Do you know that yesterday morning, Solaine told me how grateful she was that you helped her with fixing her dress? Do you know that when I got lunch with Leon and Victoire, they told me how much time you spent preparing for everything—the speech, and the wedding, both?”

Oh. Yves hadn’t known any of those things, and he knows Vincent isn’t the kind of person who would lie about this sort of thing.

“I don’t get it,” Vincent says, sounding distinctly pained to say it. “How could you possibly think that you haven’t done enough?”

Yves finds himself taken aback—by the frustration in his voice, by the fact that Vincent has noticed these things in the first place, by the fact that he’s deemed them important enough to take stock of. He makes it sound so simple. 

“I don’t know,” Yves says, at last. He shuts his eyes. “If it was enough.”

“I’m telling you that it was,” Vincent says.

But Yves knows that he could have done more, if the circumstances were different. If he hadn’t been so out of it during the wedding. If he’d taken the necessary precautions to avoid coming down with this in the first place. If he’d been able to stay through dinner, at least; if he hadn’t needed Vincent to accompany him home. 

“You don’t believe me,” Vincent says, with a sigh.

Yves doesn’t say anything, to that.

“I can’t speak for anyone else,” Vincent says. There’s the slight rustling of the covers as he shifts, rearranging one of the pillows at the headboard. “But I had fun.”

Yves’s heart twists.

It’s sweet, unexpectedly. “You don’t have to say that just to make me feel better,” Yves says.

“When have I ever said anything just to make you feel better?” Vincent says, with a short laugh. When Yves chances a look at him, he’s smiling down at himself. “I mean it. Meeting your family has been a lot of fun. It’s not often that I get the chance to be a part of something like this.”

Whether he’s referring to France, or the wedding and the festivities, or being surrounded by Yves’s large extended family, Yves isn’t sure. But if Vincent is trying to cheer him up, it’s working.

“I can see why you like France so much,” he says, turning his gaze out the window, though the view outside is filtered through the semi-translucent curtains. “It’s beautiful.”

“Today was supposed to be the last day for sightseeing,” Yves says, a little regretful. “But you’re stuck here.”

“In a sunny, luxurious hotel room, with a view of the pool and the garden?” Vincent says, with a scoff. “I could think of worse places to be.”

Staying up all night, just to check up on Yves, more accurately. Vincent must be tired, too—yesterday was already tiring enough. And now it’s morning already, and he hasn’t gotten any sleep. 

“Reading Hemingway,” Yves adds.

Vincent looks a little surprised. Then he laughs. “Yes. I guess you’re right. Perhaps it’s an agonizing experience after all.”

The yawn he stifles into his hand, after that isn’t half as subtle as he tries to make it.

Yves feels his eyebrows creep up. “Are you sure you don’t want to get some sleep? There’s plenty of room.” He scoots a little closer to the edge of the bed, just to make a point.

Vincent peers down at the space beside him, a little hesitant. “At 10am?”

“It’d be, what, 4am, back in Eastern time?” Yves says. “By Ndew York standards, you’re supposed to already be asleep.”

“That’s not how it works,” Vincent says, but he dutifully moves a little closer to Yves anyways. He’s changed out of yesterday’s wedding attire, more sensibly, but now he’s wearing a knitted cardigan which Yves thinks looks unfairly, terribly good on him. Yves finds himself marveling at the unfairness of it all. How can someone look so good wearing something so casual?

Vincent smells good, up close. When he lays down next to Yves, pulling the covers gingerly over himself—leaving a careful amount of room between them, but still dangerously, intoxicatingly close—Yves feels his breath catch in his throat.

Vincent is right there, less than an arm’s length away from him, closer than he’s ever been, and Yves—Yves is—

“See,” Yves says, as evenly as he can manage to, in his current state, as if his heart isn’t practically beating out of his chest. He swallows. His throat feels dry. “This bed definitely fits two.”

“I suppose it does,” Vincent says. “Now you can tell me if I’m a terrible person to share a bed with.”

“After everything I’ve put you through,” Yves says, “I think I’d honestly feel reassured if you were.”

Vincent smiles, again, as if he finds this humorous. “Are you sure you’re going to be fine?”

“Positive,” Yves says. “You should sleep. I’ll wake you if I ndeed anything.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.” Vincent shuts his eyes.

It’s not long before his breathing evens out, not long before he goes perfectly still. He must really be tired, Yves thinks, with a pang.

Yves, for some reason, finds that he can’t get to sleep. He stares up at the ceiling for what feels like minutes on end, shuts his eyes, all to no avail. Maybe it’s because he’s already slept far more than his usual share. Maybe it’s the jetlag. Maybe it’s merely Vincent’s unusual presence—the strangeness of having him so close, in an environment so intimate.

But when he allows himself to look, he sees—

Vincent, his eyes shut, his eyelashes fanning out over his cheeks. From the window, the filtered light gleams unevenly across the crown of dark hair on his head. There’s almost no movement to him at all, aside from the even rise and fall of his shoulders.

And Yves knows what the feeling in his chest is. He’s regrettably, intimately familiar with it.

He just isn’t sure he likes what it means.

—

Vincent—despite falling asleep so quickly—is up before him. When Yves wakes, next, it’s to a hand to his forehead.

“Hey,” Vincent is saying, softly. “Yves. You have a visitor.”

Yves opens his eyes.

He’s feeling—a little better, remarkably. Still feverish, still a little unsteady, but leagues better as compared to yesterday. When he looks over, he sees—

He doesn’t jolt upright, but it’s a close thing. “Aimee!”

He barely has a chance to ask before she’s crashing into him, encircling him in a tight hug. “Yves!” she exclaims, pulling back from him. “How are you feeling? Oh my gosh, when I heard you left early because you were unwell, I was so worried…”

Yves grimaces, turning away. “Sorry, I had every idtention of staying until the end—”

“You came all the way out with the flu!” she says. “I honestly can’t believe you. The fact that you still took the trouble to attend with a fever—”

“It—” Yves starts, but he finds himself twisting away, lifting an arm to his face. “hhEH-! HEEhD’TTSCHH-iiiEEw! Snf-! It’s fide, snf-! I’mb practically recovered already.”

“I should’ve told you not to push yourself when you told me you were coming down with something,” Aimee says, shaking her head. “And you stayed and gave such a lovely speech, even though you weren’t feeling well? When I was talking to Victoire after, she mentioned that you’ve been sick for days and Genevieve—you should’ve said something.”

“I’ll say somethidg next time,” Yves says, a little sheepishly. “Did the wedding go okay?”

Aimee visibly brightens, at this. “It was more than okay,” she says, her eyes gleaming. “It blew every expectation that I had out of the water.”

Aimee fills him in on everything that happened after he left, last night—dessert, the first dance, the cake-cutting; her favorites out of the photos they’d taken after the ceremony (a shot of Genevieve braiding her hair during the cocktail hour; a shot of them leaning in close, for the dance, tired but smiling; a shot of the cake with its multiple tiers, the frosting strung like banners across it; another where both of them are holding onto the cutting knife together and Genevieve looks like she is trying not to laugh; a shot of the bouquet toss, the flowers suspended in mid-air). She tells him about the conversations she and Genevieve had with others about marriage and their futures and their plans for their honeymoon.

Then she lectures him on how he should worry about his health first, next time. She tells him, in no uncertain terms, that she’s fully prepared to give him a piece of her mind the next time he tries to pull something like this. She insists that his health is more important than anything. Vincent stands off to the side the entire time, his arms crossed, passively listening in, but when Yves looks over helplessly, mid-lecture, he definitely looks a little smug. 

All in all, she doesn’t seem disappointed in him at all. And, more importantly, she seems happy. Yves finds himself relieved, at this.

Genevieve stops by, too, a little later, to thank him for the advice he’d given her the day before the wedding. She hugs him too, and she leaves him a bag of tea that she promises “is practically a cure to anything—I hope it makes your flight home tomorrow a little more tolerable.” Victoire stops by, with Leon, and Yves resigns himself to more lecturing from the both of them. It’s humbling, a little, to be lectured by his younger sister and his younger brother, though he concedes that perhaps this time, it might be at least partially warranted.

Then Leon opens their hotel fridge to show him the two creme brulees he and Vincent had missed out on, packaged nicely in small paper containers. (“Vincent told me you were interested in these,” he says, and Yves finds himself slightly mortified—but perhaps also a little endeared—that whatever it was that he’d said last night, offhandedly, Vincent had deemed it important enough to text Leon about.)

Later, after Yves showers and gets changed—when he and Vincent eat the creme brulees at the table in the living room, and Vincent tells him that he’s finished the book, perhaps a little masochistically (“it doesn’t get any better,” he says, sounding a little spiteful)—Yves finds himself smiling.

He’s happy, he realizes, despite everything that’s happened. Even with the slight headache, and the lingering congestion, the fever that hasn’t quite gone away entirely. The revelation comes as a surprise to him, at first. But when he thinks about the people he’s surrounded with, he thinks perhaps it isn’t all that surprising.

—

EPILOGUE

“Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” Vincent asks.

“Yes,” Yves says. It’s not a lie.

This time, he’s seated right next to the window, and Vincent is in the middle seat. Yves had offered to take the middle seat instead, but Vincent had insisted(“If you wanted to sleep, you could lean against the window,” he’d said, and Yves had accepted only because it would be better to fall asleep against the window than do something embarrassing, like fall asleep on Vincent’s shoulder).

“It’s just the annoyidg residual symptoms, now,” he says. “I—”

God. He always has the worst timing. He veers away, muffling a tightly contained sneeze into his shoulder.

“hHEH-’IIDDZschH-yyEW! Snf-! I’mb — hHhEHh’DjjsSHH-iEW! Ugh, I’m fine. I feel better thad I sound.”

“Bless you,” Vincent says, leaning over to press his hand against Yves’s forehead. “No fever,” he says. “That’s good. But you should take another day off when we get back.”

Yves doesn’t think taking another day off is necessary. “I spedt the entirety of yesterday sleeping,” he says. “I think I’ve rested enough.”

Vincent just raises an eyebrow at him. “Need I remind you that someone very wise told you to take it easy?”

“Since when has Aimee been your spokesperson?”

“She made a lot of good points,” Vincent says, deceptively unassuming. “I think you should consider taking notes.”

Yves looks at him for a moment. “You’re laughing at me.”

This time, Vincent smiles. “Maybe.”

Yves leans back in his seat, reaching up with one hand to massage his temples. The changing cabin pressure is not exactly comfortable—his head still hurts a little, but he’s flown enough times to know that it won’t be as much of a problem once they finish their ascent. 

“Thadks again for coming,” he says, unwrapping one of the small, packaged pillows the airline has left on their seats. 

“You invited me,” Vincent says, blinking. “All I did was show up.”

But that isn’t true at all, Yves thinks. Vincent is the one who spent time learning basic French, who met Yves’s family and who spoke with everyone with genuine interest, who bought Yves medicine and water, all while being careful to not be overbearing. Vincent is the one who left the wedding early to walk Yves back to the hotel, who stayed with him the entire day afterwards.

“That’s such a huge understatement I don’t even kdow where to get started,” Yves says. “Thanks for meetidg my family—they love you, by the way. They’re going to be askidg about you every summer from now on, I just know it.”

He can already picture it—June, this year, after busy season is over, if their fake relationship lasts that long. Another flight where they’re next to each other. Another dozen conversations about how they’d met, about what it’s like dating a coworker, about what their plans for the future are.

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking. This was never meant to be a long-term arrangement in the first place. But something about this—about being here with Vincent—just feels so unthinkingly easy.

“It’s no problem,” Vincent says. “The feeling is mutual. I’m glad I got to meet them.”

“Thanks for looking after me, too,” Yves says, with another apologetic smile. “I’mb sure being stuck in a hotel room all day wasn’t how you were planning on spending your last day of vacation.”

“I don’t mind,” Vincent says, sounding strangely like he means it. “I like spending time with you.”

Yves nearly drops the pillow he’s holding. 

When he looks back at Vincent, Vincent looks faintly amused. “Is that so surprising? I think I’d be a terrible fake boyfriend if I didn’t.”

“You make a really good one, as it stands,” Yves tells him, sincerely, and Vincent smiles.

Yves looks out the window—where the city beneath them begins to resolve itself into miniature, where the sky stretches where he can see Vincent reflected faintly back at him, from the glass—and finds that he feels impossibly light.