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Here.. I have nothing. Midnight Mass (2021), dir.  Mike Flanagan

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littlewingdings​:

the thing about being a bat, a part of the bat collective, it made you a part of gotham. some part of your dna was altered by the sheer fact of the amount of blood lost for the city. it made every other place in the world feel just a little off balance, like they were somehow wrong for not being more like gotham despite gotham being a wretched kind of place. dick had been happy to be in gotham, or so damian thought. but he wouldn’t simply move away without a word to his little brother. or lie about having been visiting jason todd to buy time.

“i’m sure i had far more lessons on social etiquette than you have had. remind me again how gotham’s public school education prepared you for high society?” quipping with her was soothing in a way, a trained in response. after a fight that went bad or being just a little too slow to stop the villain it was stephanie’s quick tongue and easy comedy that made it easier for him to breathe in the batsuit.

he spun in the large chair and stood up, pacing across the floor to the place where the nightwing suit should be. “it’s been twelve hours since dick’s tracking device stopped transmitting. he took the nightwing suit on what i was told was an evening out with todd and he hasn’t returned. todd is currently on the other side of the country and claims to have no memory of having agreed to an outing. i am in the process of gathering information on what happened.”

everyone knew that dick hadn’t been the same since the incident. he didn’t fight the same. his body had more limitations and his mind was changed. but he was still fundamentally the same man. he wouldn’t lie to damian like this. not to him. not unless something big happened.

stephanie licked the maple gaze off of her fingers loud enough to be heard from damian’s side of the phone just to further aggravate his delicate sensibilities and opinion of the gotham public education system. “i’m the most popular heathen at every wayne enterprises event all thanks to growing up in gotham’s underbelly,” she hummed reflexively, crossing her ankles together and swinging them over the ledge of the skyscraper she was currently roosting on. “i guess you missed out on please-and-thank-you-101 during your prestigious spoiled, little, rich bat classes.”

damian was so like his father and so not all at the same time (( figured, considering he’d always been a paradox-and-a-half )), but it seemed that he had inherited bruce’s all-encompassing bat paranoia. though, steph had to wonder if it was genetic or just part of wearing the cowl. the responsibility of robin and batgirl’s mask paled in comparison to the weight of the bat, the dark knight of gotham, and damian had always taken things to heart far easier than the rest of them. he also thought that he had to bear them alone, so she was glad that he called her despite their time apart.

“i think the standard rule is 24-hours, d,” stephanie said slowly, sitting up and wiping her hands off on the heavy material her cape, “but i’ll bite. what peril do you think has befallen our circus boy?”

[littlcstwing]

se salvar dê like

like if you saved

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ashley moore

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littlewingdings​:

@littlcstwing

dick should be back by now. should be answering his phone. his phone should be showing up in gotham city limits, or in the continental united states on a quick sweep from the tracking device inside it and he said he wasn’t going to take it out this time. damian tapped his fingers at the keys, not hard enough to press, just thinking. he wished desperately for the first time in nearly a decade for alfred to come down and interrupt a moment of training or discussion with a cup of tea because that might mean something was right. but he was only thinking about alfred because he was worried and somehow those two things had become permanently linked in his mind. the second person he thought of when he was worried was his robin. but he shouldn’t be worried. maybe he dropped his phone into a very deep, heavily lined sewer. it was only twelve hours. dick wasn’t a weak man. he was probably having a good time. he needed a good time. he said he was meeting up with jason just outside city limits to catch up.

but then… todd had said he was in new mexico chasing down some lead on a cartel he had a new feud with and damian had politely pretended not to hear the gunshots going off and knowing how many bodies had dropped based on some personal experience with todd’s aim.

so twelve hours into being unable to track dick greyson’s location, damian made a call to stephanie. the cowl felt heavy on his shoulders when he pulled it down to hold the cellphone to his ear. it always felt heavier when he didn’t have answers. when he didn’t have someone to lean on and answer the questions he had no solution to. father never mentioned how heavy it was. it took three painful rings before she connected and damian spoke first. he was terse, but not frantic. insistent, but not paranoid. “when did dick last contact you?”

his throat was so dry. the words came out too tight by mistake, not intention. maybe he could tell her he was on the move and that was why. like she’d believe it. stephanie was foolish but not an idiot.

gotham wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. in fact, gotham was most people’s cup of arsenic with a paint-thinner chaser––but it was home. metropolis had clean air and delicate skyscrapers that reflected the warm colors of the sunrise each morning. stephanie watched them blend together with a fresh donut in hand after patrol with cass at her side, kara floating next to her, and babs nagging at them to get some rest through the coms. it was nice, but it wasn’t home. it wasn’t alive in the same ways; it didn’t eat you up and spit you out in the same night.

crime alley definitely provided a very niche brand of homesickness, but it left stephanie craving smoggy skylines and the rank stench of the harbor nonetheless. the buzzing of her phone interrupted her nostalgia, and steph felt the corners of her mouth tug into a small grin, despite the recently scabbed over split in her bottom lip, as damian’s name flashed across her screen. “you don’t call for weeks, and this is the greeting i get?” smirking, she leaned back against the cool awning and crossed her legs, “manners, d. you’re in serious need of a social etiquette refresher.”

stephanie was one of the few people who knew damian wayne well, and she definitely knew how to toe the line between his irritation and rage, so she quickly turned the conversation back to his initial question. “i haven’t spoken to the og boy wonder since the last alien invasion, which was sadly only a couple months ago and the second one this year, why?”

[littlcstwing]

@littlewingdings

the thing about people who smile all the time is you have to wonder if they ever actually mean it. dick is so good at this show he’s perfected over the years that jason almost believes it. just for a second, but still. it’s impressive nonetheless, considering he knows the secret behind the magician’s trick. jason knows that the golden boy can’t stand to be around him. he reeks of failure; his own, dick’s, bruce’s––he’s got it all covered. it must be so very hard for dick to believe that he’s good in the face of his least favorite mistake, but somehow he manages. like he said, dick is nothing but impressive in his hypocrisy. 

“flattered, truly,” jason almost wishes that his modulator was off just so dick could hear exactly how impervious he was to his charms, “but i’m not really your target demographic, ‘wing. save the flips for the kiddos and damsels in distress.”  

jason isn’t exactly sure how dick manages to turn meaningless banter into overly-intrusive probes into his psyche on the flip of a dime, but he has a sneaking suspicion that it all traces back to his tedious acrobatics. “sounds a lot like stockholm syndrome,” his leather gloves creak as he stretches his fingers. “someone should call peeta before they’re fucked up beyond repair.” ‘like i am,’ went without saying––just like most of their conversations. it’s a miracle they spoke at all. 

dick can poke and prod at his walls all night; jason has withstood far more effective methods of torture. “i don’t pout,” he says reflexively, regretting it just as quickly. even without being able to hear the tone of his voice, he still sounds petulant––god forbid, pouty. “you must be in a real shitstorm if you’re coming to me for backup. is it past the kiddies’ bedtime, already?”

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siinclairs​:

you always say the right thing, and then you go and do the worst things. i’ve seen you do it a million times to a million girls. …okay. was she wrong ? no, absolutely not, although shiloh would argue he didn’t do the worst things, but regardless, the fuck was she saying that for ? his jaw settled. “ so what, ” he pushed out lowly, “ you think i’m a piece of shit or something ? ” but even that didn’t explain where this was all coming from, why she was shooting down all of his efforts to show that he was here, he was here now, and that’d he’d spend a million dollars buying documentaries if it meant they could hang out like old times. “ well a phone works two fucking ways, alex, ” shiloh countered, frown lines settling between his eyebrows, “ you could’ve fucking texted me every now and then, too. ” he did not leave one heated break-up just for alex to dump their friendship right on her frilly duvet. God, he needed a fucking drink now. and a wall to kick, maybe. “ no, ” shiloh immediately objected, “ no, don’t fucking whatever this, alex. tell me why you’re acting like this out of nowhere. ” 

alex closed her eyes and exhaled shallowly. she was the tortoise; she moved slowly so that she could examine the situation from every angle. she took time to bisect and dissect her thoughts until the meaning got lost in her analysis of what would yield the most favorable results. her dad used to say that it’d take professor x to know what she really thought; he was probably right. “i think,” she started slowly, “you can be a really shitty person, sometimes.” he pursed her lips and fixated her gaze the hangnail on her thumb so that she wouldn’t accidentally roll her eyes. shiloh was like a rabid dog when he felt like he was under attack; she tried not to give him much to jump on. “i guess i got a little sick of retaliation from your hyper-vigilante girlfriend. i almost got a concussion the last time the bases ‘accidentally’ dropped me.” god, he was pushing it. alex dug her nails into her thigh until her tanned skin threatened to break. he was usually so quick to drop any conversation verging on emotional; of course, he had to pursue the only one she didn’t want to have. “a person can only take so much for so long, shiloh,” she finally said, quietly. 

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siinclairs​:

you can’t just… show up. shiloh’s immediate reaction was to question her; really, alex ? he almost asked. this is all about me interrupting your study time ? i’m literally only going to be here for an hour. but then alex continued, and shiloh realized too quickly that the root of their problem was not him and a discarded pack of flash cards. he could argue about that, he could argue about alex needing a break anyways, could argue about something as easy as a study sesh. but their problem was deeper than bio terms, and he hadn’t been exactly expecting a fight to break out between them. God, didn’t he come here to get away from arguments ? “ alex, ” shiloh tried, “ nothing i could possibly have going on is more important than you. okay ? i know we haven’t been hanging out as much but that’s why i’m here. if this is about me not… not texting you beforehand then i’ll just do that next time. ” his grip on her sheets then tightened along with his brows. “ what the fuck are you saying ? ” shiloh asked her, shutting the laptop and moving it to the side so he could look at alex directly now. “ christ, alex – we go a few days without talking every now and then, i’m fucking aware, but why can’t i try to fucking fix that ? what’s your problem with me ? ”

shiloh had this habit of ignoring the real issue simply because it was real. alex usually put up with it because she was afraid of what would happen if she pushed him past the brink of his comfort zone, but if he was going to leave her one piece at the time...she’d rather know it while she still had some of him to miss. “pretty words.” alex murmured, pinching her brow and closing her eyes, “you always say the right thing, and then you go and do the worst things. i’ve seen you do it a million times to a million girls.” the universe must be punishing her for having the audacity to think that she was special. classic literature should’ve taught her that pride cometh before the fall. “a couple days isn’t the same thing as months. you’re smart enough to know that.” alex rubbed at her eyes with the palm of her hand and stared at the ceiling as she debated if she really wanted to continue this fight. she didn’t fight with shiloh, not even when she hated him. maybe she didn’t want the answers, after all. “whatever,” she cleared her throat and almost swallowed hard enough to choke on her words, “my problem my issue, right?” 

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siinclairs​:

“ hey – i only said ghosts, not the holy ghost, ” he shook his head with a laugh, “ but a new jeep would be fucking great. i want one with monster wheels next. ” not that there was anything wrong with his current one; it was dark blue and had a few scratches and about fifty of alex’s hair ties strewn about in there. he always told her to pick them up and get them out of his car, but when they started hanging out less and she actually started taking them with her, well – shiloh, like with a lot of other things, started to not mind when alex left her shit in his shit. he tries not to beat himself too hard about it and start feeling weird, because he’s allowed to miss his best friend. there’s nothing odd or – or dumb about missing the nights where he’d knock on alex’s door at 2 a.m. and ask if she wanted to go to the 24 hour drive-thru theatre, about missing when they wouldn’t even pay attention because they were too busy facing each other in the seats of his car, some obscure black-and-white film playing while they talked about things that mattered, things that didn’t, nothing dumb about missing when he’d buy her cheap mcdonald’s afterwards and feel his muscles relax every time she tipped her head back to laugh. that was just friend shit, even if morgan would insist otherwise. so hearing that the one time they finally get to hang out again, alex wasn’t even going to pay attention ? “ what ? ” he asked, frowning now. “ the fuck do you mean, why did i come here ? i came here to hang out with you, alex, it’s why i brought a movie. ” shiloh had a feeling his answer wouldn’t hit the exact point she was trying to make, and he also had a feeling about where this conversation was going, but damn if he wasn’t going to try and steer it away from that if he could. “ come on, let’s just finish this, and then you can study after i leave. ”

alex forgot to mad at him for a moment as she wrinkled her nose and smirked, “disgusting. monster wheels are a step away from cowboy boots and ripped sleeves.” sometimes, when alex poured her dad into bed after he poured dinner down his throat, he would look at her with such starting clarity that she thought he was sober for a moment. ‘if you’re not careful, you’ll end up alone,’ he’d say, like me hanging heavily above their heads. but her dad wasn’t just alone; he was alone and abandoned. there were worse things than being isolated; her dad was just one of them. “you can’t just...show up,” she finally said, swallowing hard as she stared at the black laptop screen. she could make out shiloh’s warped expression if she focused hard enough. she closed her eyes, instead. “not anymore. i have things going on, now, and so do you.” that was a lie, but it was for the best. shiloh was bedrock in the basement; he was the one person she couldn’t rip out of herself no matter how far she moved away from him––but he could rip the band-aid off. he’d always been good at that. “it’s cool, y’know. it’s whatever, but you can’t just go back to the way things used to be whenever you feel like it.”  

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siinclairs​:

“ mhm, ” shiloh played along, reaching forward to lightly tug at a strand of alex’s wavy hair. “ open your fuckin’ mind up already; the world’s a lot more fun when ghosts are real and documentaries have behind-the-scenes footage. ” as if he was the shining example of broad horizons and a willingness to accept; shiloh was three parts more stubborn than he ever was open about anything, but it was fun to pretend that he was the optimistic one between the two. shiloh snorted as the opening credits of the documentary started to play, saying, “ i’ve never watched anything to deal with the earth or animals until now. only penguins i know are the team. ” he really was here, prepared to watch two hours of fucking penguins, just for alex. a big part of his life has always been doing things for alex, even if he didn’t want to – in the earlier days it came in the form of walking around the aquarium for his fifteenth time ever just because alex wanted to go again. more recently ? watching this movie while morgan parrish was two angry subtweets and one angry flick of her ponytail away from skinning him alive. but he was here for that reason: he wanted to feel normal again, and normal for shiloh sinclair was being next to alexandra taylor. so imagine his confusion when alex told him that she planned to study. while he was there. he was right there, he spent money on this, and she was going to study through it all ? and okay, yeah, she made a point; he could’ve called. but boohoo, he didn’t, but he’s here now and he brought the movie for them to watch together. shiloh furrowed his brows, sitting up from where he’d gotten comfortable in her bed to peer down at her. “ well can you study some other time ? ” he asked, and the question felt stupid coming from his lips and knowing alex, but he hadn’t exactly imagined she would want to not watch the movie he fucking brought for them to watch. “ as riveting as penguins are, ” he stated dryly, “ i didn’t exactly come here to watch them alone. i got this for us, you know. ”

the thing about shiloh lately, was that he left her worse for wear long after he went home. it was fun, in the moment; it always was. she understood on a deeper level why her dad always indulged in three overpriced tumblers of whiskey for dinner after months of on-and-off again sobriety, even though it made him sick in the morning. she was tired of waking up alone and hungover after binge drinking shiloh’s warmth. “and i suppose god is real and answers our prayers, too?” she grinned tiredly and combed her hair back into place with her fingers. “or maybe santa claus is in the forgiving mood and building you a new jeep, despite seeing all your instagram stories.” she could sense the frustration building between his brows. anyone could, really. while shiloh’s other emotions were far more nuanced and took years to study, he wore his irritation blatantly on his sleeve (( most likely to cover up his heart, in alex’s humble opinion )). usually, she was the type of person to bend over backwards to smooth out the wrinkles of tension in foreheads for the sake of keeping the peace, but she felt like she was barely wearing my skin. something else slipped inside, and her bones were just wire hangers bending under the weight of heavy fabric. she was so full of drowning that fresh air hurt for its unfamiliarity. maybe that was why she stopped running outside in the morning, not because she lost her partner. which one, she pondered, which reason was more pathetic. “tomorrow’s monday, so...not really.” alex closed her eyes and rubbed at her drooping lids with the palm of her hand. how it was possible for mister sandman to leave sand in the corner of her eyes when she hadn’t slept in days? “why did you come here?” she finally said quietly.

[littlcstwing]

siinclairs​:

“ you’re closed-minded as fuck if you think you can’t have behind-the-scenes footage of a behind-the-scenes movie, ” shiloh quipped, lightly tapping the edge of the dvd case against her temple as he spoke each syllable. “ they might show some fuckin’ penguin bloopers, i don’t know. ” he lazily rolled over onto his back, arms crossed behind his head. he was trying to seamlessly fall back into the habits of shilohandalex; banter, a kick to the side here and there, and the first real smile shiloh cracked in days. but it was like morgan had made the corners of his lips learn to brace themselves in a perpetual scowl, had made his muscles abandon casualty in favor of constant tension. these were the reminders of morgan he couldn’t shake off, couldn’t delete from his camera roll and block with two quick presses of his thumb, so he was relying on this night to reintroduce himself back to what it felt like to not have a headache throbbing between his eyebrows, what it felt like to stretch his toes and make a joke. “ you’re a fan of me, ” shiloh answered with a grin, bottom lip cracking slightly from the brutal split his lower lip took from last week’s game. he frowned slightly as he watched alex reach for index cards, pushing himself up onto his elbow as he watched her shuffle them with too much expertise in her lap. she wasn’t… she wasn’t planning on studying right now, right ? he hadn’t exactly came here to watch alex read about nucleotides; he didn’t even give a fuck about penguins, but he bought the dvd for her, for them to watch. “ yeah, ” shiloh murmured distractedly, hardly registering what she said. “ you’re not actually gonna’ look at those right now, right ? ” he gestured to the cards.

“you’re just saying that because i don’t believe in ghosts,” alex smiled slightly, more than she wanted to, but she supposed that couldn’t be helped. she lacked self-control around shiloh, even more now that she didn’t know how much of him she still had, could have, would have after he left her dorm room. she felt like she was on the cusp of an overdose now that the scent of his shampoo was close enough to huff, like an alcoholic staring down a bottle after months of sobriety. “i think the entire movie is penguin blooper. haven’t you ever watched planet earth? they always have a montage of the animals tripping or slipping because it’s cute as hell.” alex shifted her torso, tried crossing her ankles and then switched onto her stomach after a moment of finger twitching and lip biting. she had an unsettling feeling that shiloh had something terrible to tell her. why else would he show up at her door out of nowhere and risk pissing off his (( in her opinion )) potentially homicidal girlfriend. alex finally settled on propping her chest on top of her stuffed shark and leaning her legs agains the wall behind her bed so that she could see her index cards, textbook, and her laptop screen without having to move. “i’m neutral at best,” she hummed absently, letting her vision cloud with swirling letters and scientific equations so that shiloh was a distant, fuzzy outline. she wasn’t sure where the line was anymore, what she was allowed to say or do with him now that he let some random girl control his life. maybe, if she were more like elena (( stronger, more solid )), she would say what she thought instead of giving into the tide, but she wasn’t. it was easier to sink than it was to drown. “um,” alex glanced up from her meticulously scribed notes and arched her brow, “yeah. i have a quiz on monday. i would’ve told you that if you called.”  

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banksd​:

banks furrowed his eyebrows. “ what, you think you gotta’ have a certain amount of  horsepower for me to have spoken to you before ? ” he asked with a confused grin. while that typically was what his life had amounted to thus far – he wasn’t typically around people who weren’t getting into catch nyc solely off of street cred and tabloids – banks sometimes got a break from all the botox and the trust funds and got to meet someone normal. …and maybe that someone normal was a drug dealer, or a stripper, but point was that if this girl was trying to say something that would make it clear that they couldn’t have met before, banks might challenge it if his headache lightens. as she looked at his face, any sort of familiarity wasn’t making itself present to him, so at that point he was convinced a stranger was cleaning his shoes. “ i’m not taking my shoe off, ” he insisted, half amused and half lost – a constant state of his, if he’s being honest. fame has sort of fucked up his reactions to things. “ they’re literally just shoes, and this is a kitchen. stuff’s gonna’ get on me no matter what, and i care more about not fucking up my job than trying to get sauce off of my shoe. ” he also had a stack of pr shoes lazily shoved into the large room in his penthouse he designated just for brand packages he didn’t want to spend hours sifting through. if push came to duck fat then he’d just throw out his yeezy’s and start wearing the other custom shoes the guy had mailed to him months ago. banks crossed his arms over his white coat, leaning against the silver cooking table behind them as he looked at this girl; this girl who bent down and tried to wipe the sauce off his shoes. God, who was she if not someone he’d forgotten ? “ did my agent hire you ? ”

quinn stopped dabbing at the stain and looked up at him with an arched brow. “more like a certain tax bracket,” she finally muttered, directing her gaze back to the tip of his shoe. she had been told that her eyes were too intense to maintain eye contact for longer than five seconds, like if she looked at someone too long they’d turn to stone. that was fine with her; medusa was the heroine in her story. “they’re just shoes,” quinn repeated slowly, blinking even slower between every word. in a sense, banks was right; they were shoes, but they were also groceries for three months and half her rent. the idea of...just throwing them away left her feeling physically ill. “i wasn’t aware that you needed both of your shoes to hold a spatula.” she started undoing the laces regardless of his assertions. he would thank her after his shoe didn’t look like it had shit on it––or he’d get her fired, and she could auction off his shoe lace to one of his psycho fans for three times what she was getting paid tonight. “you can donate them to charity, then, or give them to one of your indentured servants––foot up,” quinn looked up at him expectantly and tugged on the tongue of his shoe lightly. she was beginning to give him the benefit of the doubt, or at least beginning to potentially see him as a human being, and then he continued to speak. “excuse me?” she jerked her hands away from him and tossed her ponytail over her shoulder, “i’m a waitress. you’ll have to troll the boardwalk for those services.” 

[littlcstwing]

siinclairs​:

he’d never admit it aloud, but shiloh was grateful that alex wasn’t turning him away, or something less dramatic like telling him she had plans and couldn’t hang. while he was incredibly skilled at ignoring his feelings and looming thoughts until his hands started to unclench and another part of him was chipped away, he didn’t want to be alone, not right now. as pathetic as he knew it sounded, he couldn’t bear to be resorted to sitting in his room alone, fresh from a toxic break-up. so maybe he rolled his eyes in that moment at alex’s statement, but she might be able to see the relief that coated them either way. “ yeah, yeah. i won’t hear you bitching when this starts playing its exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, ” he responded, looking down at his best friend. his best friend, the only person in the world right now he could handle seeing. he entered her room, stepping over a stray highlighter as he followed her to the bedroom. alex was usually a lot more organized than shiloh was at like… everything, but he’d reckon that even his own room was tidier than hers at that moment, and that never happened. was this something she started doing that he just never noticed since they hadn’t been hanging out as frequently ? morgan usually moved every mountain and dorm building to make sure shiloh didn’t even get a chance to think about crashing at alex’s like he used to in past semesters. he collapsed onto her bed, residual stress settling into his joints as he blew out a puff of air, trying to center himself and stop his fucking thoughts, God, shiloh, stop thinking. “ reservation my ass, ” he said with a snort, focusing on alex now. “ it’s way more fun when i show up unexpected, and you know it. ‘sides, i literally came with a gift, ” he pointed out, waving the dvd in the air.

“it’s a documentary,” alex snorted and rolled onto her stomach so that she could reach the spacebar on her laptop. luckily, she happened to own an external dvd dive, or they’d be out of luck. of course, luck hadn’t ever been needed with shilohandalex; he probably knew about every sock she had lost under her bed. “what exactly happens behind the scenes of a behind-the-scenes movie?” she was still more than slightly irritated that he showed up with no explanation after such a prolonged period of silence. in fact, she was more than slightly sure that he was only in her room because morgan had something better to do than him for once, and she wished––god, she wished––that she was the kind of person who could just say things without worrying about the repercussions. she wished could just force her tongue to move, to form the words that were burned behind her eyelids after staring at his instagram stories all night. fuck, she wished she even had to to try to bite her tongue. how pathetic was it that her initial instinct was to instead bite off her tongue and swallow it just to keep the warmth in the air for a little longer. “when have i ever been a fan of the unexpected?” alex finally said, appeased with the partial truth even if it was only apparent to herself. she fumbled around the foot of her bed without looking away from the laptop screen until she found the blue highlighter she used for vocabulary with latin origins and the stack of index cards she’d been flipping through before shiloh showed up unannounced. “and gifts should come without strings-attached,” alex paused and continued to shuffle the cards carefully in her lap, “irony aside.”  

[littlcstwing]

[littlcstwing]

banksd​:

banks might be hungover. but in his defense, he’d been hired by the owner of a luxe hotel chain to create and cook the menu for his new manhattan location’s grand opening, and said owner’s granddaughter was ever-so-conveniently the same hotel heiress who’d yelled to tmz one time that banks dempskey was a two-timing, good-for-nothing asshole, and he’d found out last night that she’d be attending the event. so naturally he got fucking shit-faced despite the warning from his manager, and now he was standing in a kitchen he didn’t want to be in, blinking his eyes hard as he tried to focus on the béchamel sauce he was presently whipping. he hadn’t thought twice about his attire that morning, putting on his chef’s coat and stomping his feet into the first shoes he could stumble over after the sounds of his early-morning retching filled every hallway of his barren penthouse. he hadn’t even realized he had his pair of white yeezy’s on until someone was bending down in front of him. “ whoa, whoa– what the hell are you doing ? ” he had immediately interjected, red eyes widening. he was always down for some sloppy but not in a fucking kitchen, dear God ! but then he noticed the girl patting at something that must’ve dripped onto his shoes, and he furrowed his eyebrows, watching in a mix of horror and confusion. why was she–? why was she cleaning his shoes ? his manager mentioned fanfics but not getting his shoes rubbed at as something he’d face during stardom. did he know this girl from somewhere ? had he slept with her and forgotten he did it because he was high, or coked out, or just fucking exhausted ? because banks didn’t think a stranger would do this, right ? “ …do i know you ? ” his head wasn’t clear enough for this. it took him a few seconds to register her question, the clank and clatter of pots and ingredients hitting against piping hot oil not coupling well with the headache pounding against his eardrums. “ um, yeah, ” he nodded, still a little dazed, “ it’s by all the sauces and shit, on the shelf. …you’re not going to try and put that on my shoes, are you ? ”

quinn glanced up from the brown splotches on his otherwise pristinely white shoes and scrunched her nose in confusion at his question. “obviously not. i mean, i drive a buick.” she snorted and stood up once she was satisfied that all the excess soy sauced had been mopped up. she barely took a moment to glance at his face in case by some miracle they had met before or maybe he wasn’t the fuckboy clogging up her dashboard with his exploits and shenanigans. he was, of course. hotels like this didn’t hire nobodies, even if they can cook just as well as the somebodies. “white vinegar is the best way to get soy sauce out of fabric without damaging it,” she echoed her mother’s voice without pausing to actually address banks because the shelf the vinegar was on was high enough to require all her concentration––the perils of being 5′ 3″. she couldn’t reach the shelf on pointe, so she pushed a couple plates out of the way so that she could leverage her weight on top of the table’s stainless steel countertop. “you’ll need to take it off,” quinn hummed, grinning slightly as her fingertips finally brushed the glass bottle. “the shoe,” she added quickly, just in case the tabloids detailing his ‘public indecency’ weren’t totally exaggerated. maybe, it wasn’t fair of her to judge a book by the cover of magazine articles and second-hand stories, but he did seem to paint the complete picture with bloodshot eyes and ridiculously expensive tennis shoes (( kayne’s shoes, no less )). still. he was technically her superior for the night, so she allowed her mouth to curve into a ghost of a smirk because she’d been told a time or two that her resting face resembled, ‘a petite sociopathic ax-murder looking to settle the score.’ “unless, you want to stick your whole foot in the sink.”