#the candis have VERY SERIOUS OPINIONS on Rory's lovelife

[innytoes]

... "I may not be beautiful, but at least I know a lot of useless information."

reggie. please.

😩 okay i'll be done now

Reggie wasn't sure how he ever got an invite to tonight. Like sure, he knew Julie, she was practically his sister now, after her parents took him in (stole him, more like it) when they found out what was going on at home.

Reggie had been too young to entirely know the details, but from hearing tía Victoria shouting from downstairs about 'putting the cart before the horse' and 'your home study wasn't until next month', he was pretty sure it hadn't been done entirely by the book. But given the fact he'd passed out from neglect and DCF had been over to his house twice already and had done nothing, there was some leeway.

So yeah, he was basically a Molina now, even though the adoption was pending because the courts were backed up to the heavens. Which meant Julie was his sister.

And Julie knew Flynn. And Flynn was cool (and pretty). And Julie and Flynn knew Carrie. Who knew the Candis. Who were all also very pretty and very out of his league. And then the new guy at school showed up, the one with the killer cheekbones and the cute laugh and the pretty hair and...

And Reggie wasn't sure why he was here, except for the fact that Julie told him to bring his crochet stuff because they were 'having craft night'.

He loved craft night, okay? Julie and Flynn and him would turn on a crappy movie, and they'd each do their own thing. He'd crochet, Julie would draw, and Flynn would work on whatever project had caught her fancy this time. Sometimes it was making jewellery, sometimes it was diamond painting, sometimes it was gluing an insane number of googly eyes onto a phone case.

So he threw on his flannel, grabbed his bag with his current project (a baby yoda amigurumi), and followed Julie out the door, ready to head over to Flynn's.

Except there was a car waiting outside for them. Like, a fancy car. And when Julie pulled him in after her, he wasn't sure what to do except follow. Like, did he forget something? Flynn was already there, a giant tote on her lap.

It wasn't until they left the neighbourhood that Reggie spoke up. "So, um, where are we going?" And Flynn burst out laughing.

"You didn't tell him we're going to Carrie's place?" she asked, and Julie gave him an evil grin.

"I didn't want him to chicken out," she said sweetly. Because Julie knew that Carrie and her Candis intimidated the heck out of Reggie ever since he was smacked by the Puberty Stick and realised 'oh no, girls and boys are pretty'. So he'd been kind of avoiding them ever since Julie and Flynn made up with Carrie.

And thus, he was trapped in a car, going to Carrie Wilson's house, and now he was surrounded by beautiful people. And amazing snacks. And a TV three times the size of the one they had at home, playing a Gilmore Girls marathon on low volume.

(Every time Dean appeared on screen, two of the Candis boo'ed, while one other cheered, and the fourth took a shot of soda. He, again, was too afraid to ask.)

There were people knitting, drawing, making friendship bracelets, bedazzling a rather rad-looking jacket. Cute skateboard guy, who turned out to be named Willie, was attaching Worms On A String to one another to make long chains of them, explaining he wanted to make a curtain for his door. He seemed impressed by Reggie's Baby Yoda, and even more so when Julie whipped out her phone to show off some of the other things Reggie had made over the years.

It was entirely too much attention from entirely too many hot people, and he resisted the urge to talk. Because if he'd talk, he'd start spouting out stupid pick-up lines and he'd never be invited back. And also Julie would kill him. If Carrie didn't.

Eventually, he was saved by the Dean ("Booo!") and he could go back to counting stitches and eating fancy snacks and carefully, being so totally normal, complimenting bedazzling techniques.

Carrie Wilson smiled at him and it wasn't one of those smiles that made him worry she was going to stab him later, so that was cool.

Just when he thought he was safe from making a complete and utter buffoon of himself, a dark figure leapt over the back of the couch and plopped next to him, leaning over to grab one of the vegan spring rolls in one fluid movement.

Reggie looked up, a little bit startled, and then realised. Oh no.

Oh no, that was Bobby Shaw, his biggest crush. Bobby who was always cool and always wore black and red and always had a snarky comment in English class when Mrs Miller was picking on someone. Who swept his hair off his forehead during PE in a way that made Reggie wish he was better at sports. What was Bobby doing here?

"What are you doing here?" Carrie asked, but she asked it in a way that sounded a lot more annoyed than Reggie felt.

"There's snacks," Bobby pointed out, like that was reason enough.

"This is craft night," Carrie glared at him. "You have to be making something to join."

"I'm making you annoyed," Bobby said, popping another spring roll in his mouth before moving on to the cookies. "Oh fuck, is she still with Dean? Booo!"

Immediately, one of the Candis (the yellow one, maybe? He couldn't tell, out of costume they were not all as committed to the aesthetic as Carrie was) turned around and said: "Your cousin can stay." Then, she turned to Bobby. "Jess or Logan?"

"Paris." This got some shocked and awed looks, though Flynn and Purple Candi (he was pretty sure) cackled.

Oh. Cousin. Cool, cool, cool cool coolcoolcoolcool. That didn't make Bobby like ten times more intimidating to talk to. Nope, not at all.

Thankfully, the conversation carried on without anyone pointing out Reggie had recounted the stitches of this row eight times already because he kept getting distracted by how funny and cute Bobby was.

"And then," Probably Blue Candi said. "He asked me to knit him a sweater! Can you believe it?"

"What's wrong with knitting your boyfriend a sweater?" Willie asked, confused.

"It's the Sweater Curse," Reggie said. Willie blinked at him, so he went on. "If you knit your partner a sweater, you will break up with them."

"Because of a sweater?" Bobby asked, doubtful.

"Because you just spent hundreds of dollars on nice yarn, asking their opinions on colors and the material and size and shapes and finding a pattern and adjusting it to their size and then even more countless hours knitting it only for them to declare it's 'kind of itchy' and never wear it or they shrink it in the wash because they didn't listen to you and then shrug it off because it's 'just a sweater' and you realise you could have spent all that time and effort and money on making something for yourself instead of this asshole who never cared about your craft in the first place."

The room was silent when he stopped talking, and Reggie felt his face grow hot.

Okay, so maybe the nerdy crochet version of that was his last girlfriend who asked him to make a giant Snorlax, who got snippy when he wasn't done in two weeks, but the point still stood.

"Heck yeah!" Maybe Blue Candi said. "Reggie knows what I'm talking about."

"I may not be beautiful, but at least I know a lot of useless information," Reggie deflected.

"I dunno," Bobby said, and Reggie felt his heart sink. "You're pretty cute."

This time, it was Julie and Carrie doing the booing, but at the end of the evening he'd eaten a ton of snacks, finished Baby Yoda's body, and had Bobby's number in his phone.

He never made Bobby a sweater, but when he nervously gave Bobby the giant throw blanket for his bed on their three year anniversary, Bobby tackled him to the ground and gave him so many thank you kisses that Reggie knew no curse could take them out.