#edit: it's not a smiley face but it's fairly close

[greyias]

HELP

I CAN'T BREATH

WHEEZING

[immortalcockroach]

I’M FINE BECAUSE I KNOW YOU’RE MINE

summary: Clarke and Bellamy have been YouTubers for quite a long time. Clarke and Bellamy have also been dating for quite some time.

But their viewers don’t know that.

Not that Clarke and Bellamy are really hiding it.

pairing: Bellamy x Clarke

words: 3,240

read on AO3

hen Clarke and Bellamy first start hanging out, it comes as no surprise to anyone. She’s a sophomore at Arkadia High and he’s a senior, but even despite the age difference, they have one very specific thing in common – they are two YouTubers on the rise in a fairly small town.

He’s the one who approaches her, at first. She’s sitting in the cafeteria with Raven, Luna, and Harper, and he’s passing by with some of his friends when he stops at their table.

‘Hey, Griffin.’

Clarke turns her head to face him, and she’s practically awestruck.

The thing with Bellamy Blake is that everyone knows he has a YouTube channel and around these parts, that makes him a star of sorts. He’s by no means a popular as a broad term, but Ark High is not a big school and Arkadia is not a big town, so here, he’s the closest thing to a popular high school student they’ll get.

He’s also attractive. On his videos, goofy and dorky, too, and nerdy sometimes, but smart and intelligent, and with those black locks of his, it would be a lie to say that Clarke doesn’t have a celebrity crush on him.

A slight one. It’s a crush nonetheless.

‘Hey.’

‘I watched some of your videos the other day,’ says Bellamy. He’s smiling at her, the tips of his fingers resting at her table. ‘They’re really good.’

Clarke is almost too surprised to smile back, but she does. She even manages to say ‘Thanks,’ and she’s proud of herself.

Bellamy brings the hand form the table into a thumbs up. ‘Keep doing that.’

And walks away.

It takes Clarke about several long moments to wrap her head around what just happened. Bellamy isn’t only popular because of his YouTube channel, far from that – his channel is popular because he is hot, intelligent and the kind of jock that doesn’t seem possible to be real. Clarke, on the other hand, isn’t unpopular – but she’s a sophomore, who spends most of her time hanging out with her friends and doesn’t really do parties, even though she goes to the football games. Most people don’t know about her channel, even though she isn’t trying to hide it.

Somehow, the fact that Bellamy watched and liked her videos inspires her to try even harder at the YouTube game. Her next video is better than the previous one, and she even gets a new camera and an external microphone, and within two months there’s a light in her bedroom and she’s getting more and more views. Occasionally, Bellamy leaves a comment, and she does the same on his videos.

Often, when Raven confronts her about the fact that she started truly caring about her YouTube channel only after she realized Bellamy Blake was a viewer, she denies it.

‘It’s not about Bellamy,’ she’d say. ‘Not really.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Okay, listen. Sure, kind of, knowing that Bellamy likes the channel meant something but not in the way you think.’ It’s one of the times when Raven is featured in one of her videos and there’s a camera in front of them, filming. Clarke knows she’ll see this when editing the footage and it makes her a little nauseous. ‘He’s the first person to actually acknowledge that they watch my channel.’

Raven coughs. ‘Luna and Harper don’t count as people? I’m a bird?’

‘That’s not what I meant! People who aren’t my close friends. Who I have nothing to do with.’

‘Well, I guess. It’s a fair point.’

‘Thanks.’

Raven leans towards Clarke’s laptop that’s open with a script of things they need to do—yes, Clarke scripts the general gist of her videos because otherwise she’s in no way capable of remembering what she wanted to say or do—and opens her YouTube channel. She doesn’t stop at that; soon after there’s about five tabs open, all different videos of Clarke’s. She scrolls down to the comments of the most recent one.

‘What do you see?’

It’s Bellamy’s comment. ‘You managed to make Arkadia seem a lot better than it actually is! Different perspectives mean the world, smiley face,’ she reads out loud.

‘Right.’ Raven shifts to a different tab, scrolls down to the comments. ‘What about this one?’

‘Just wanted to let you know Octavia found this tutorial and now I had to go buy her an eyeshadow palette. At least she doesn’t want to be a warrior princess anymore!’ Clarke reads again. ‘What’s your point?’

Raven closes all tabs they don’t need and leans back on the bed, sitting back next to Clarke. ‘I’m saying he might have a thing for you.’

‘He doesn’t.’

‘Clarke. He comments on your every video.’

‘They’re not flirty comments!’

‘Sure.’

‘Yeah.’

It stops at that and Clarke is happy Raven let it be, because she doesn’t really know how the rest of the conversation would have possibly gone. One of her best friend’s specialties is that she can get everything out of people, even the things they aren’t aware of – and Clarke fears, deep down, that there’s something about the older Blake she is trying very hard not to be aware of.

Throughout the year, as Clarke’s videos get more creative, more well-produced, just better in general, so do Bellamy’s. It’s not long after Christmas that he reaches the one hundred thousand subscribers mark and gets verified, and a few days later, she reaches her fifty thousand. They congratulate each other, as it should be, and keep leaving comments on each other’s videos. People start noticing it, replying to their comments, and before they know it, they’re bringing traffic to one another.

Several weeks before their spring break, during one of the times when she and Bellamy walk half-way together after classes, she realizes that somewhere along the line, they became friends. She can’t pinpoint the exact moment; there were smiles and nods in the hallway, at first, ever since their conversation. Sometime around Thanksgiving, it turned into short chats, and after Christmas, they walked together for the first time. After his games, whenever Clarke would tag along with Raven to a party, they’d gravitate towards each other. It wouldn’t be a rare sight to see her in his car after one of those, as he tended to leave earlier because he needed to look after his sister, and she isn’t exactly a party person. That transferred into him picking her up if he’s driving, or walking with her if he’s not.

When spring break arrives, they film their first collab – exam survival tips on Clarke’s, and a workout/nutrition routine for Bellamy’s (as Clarke knows something about that because of her mother’s medical profession). It garners quite some attention, even from people they don’t know, and their numbers start going up quickly.

Raven says it’s their chemistry at work.

Bellamy graduates and that summer, they go on a trip and they vlog it. Clarke’s content starts shifting towards art and crafts and trying to lead a creative and free life while being a high school student.

‘Hippy,’ as Luna would say, ‘you’re turning into a hippy.’

Her videos feature more of Luna and a bit less of Raven, and Harper makes an occasional appearance now, with Bellamy mostly being in the back of Clarke’s vlog sections of her videos. Bellamy’s content shifts more towards vlogs and him trying out to figure out how to balance looking after his sister when his mother works long hours.

He goes to University of Arkadia and they stay close. Octavia starts high school and at that point, Clarke is pretty much friends with her. She sees Bellamy several days a week and they still film together almost all the time, not even on purpose.

Boyfriends and girlfriends come and go, but none of them are ever shown in Clarke’s videos. In Bellamy’s, there are occasional sights of Echo or Roma or Gina, but that’s it – he never shows Finn, when Clarke asks him not to. He doesn’t show Niylah, Clarke’s short-term thing during her first semester at Uni of Arkadia, nor Lexa, when they date almost until the beginning of her second year.

Clarke breaks up with her because there’s something about her relationship with Bellamy that has been changing for a while and Lexa doesn’t like it.

They’re sitting in Clarke’s dorm room, on her bed. Lexa is looking away from her and no matter how hard Clarke tries, she can’t get the brunette to show her face.

‘You spend more time with him than you do with me,’ says Lexa.

‘He’s my best friend. We do the same thing for a living. It’s – it’s a job, as well.’ It doesn’t feel like a job, but she has to explain herself somehow.

But as Lexa keeps talking about Clarke not being close enough to her, and that they’re drifting apart, and that she doesn’t really know where they stand anymore, Clarke realizes that she doesn’t need to explain herself to someone. If Lexa doesn’t understand Bellamy’s importance in her life, that’s all Clarke needs.

‘Maybe this just isn’t about Bellamy at all,’ she says. ‘Maybe we’re just not working out.’

Lexa faces her, finally, and her lips are pressed into a thin line – otherwise, there is nothing on her face that would indicate her being upset. ‘You’re just looking for excuses.’

‘Well, what’s your hot take on the whole thing?’

‘I don’t know. But I feel like you’d rather be with him than with me.’

They both know what she means by those words: being with him as in physically spending time with him. But as their relationship deteriorates, Clarke’s mind keeps going back to this conversation and Lexa’s words start bearing a different meaning.

It’s sometime in October, four years since they started talking, that Clarke tells Bellamy how she feels. It’s not a big ordeal – they’re cooking lunch in Bellamy’s kitchen and he’s vlogging, when they touch the topic.

‘Clarke, do you read comments on our videos?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Have you noticed that lately, the amount of comments saying that we should start dating has increased?’

Clarke laughs, and shakes her head, because no, she actually hasn’t.

Stirring the homemade white sauce, she kind of leans away fro the camera, biting the insides of her cheeks. Then, in a moment of pure courage, she doesn’t even look at Bellamy when she says: ‘But, you know, I can’t really disagree.’

His laughter echoes for as long as it takes him to realize that she said she doesn’t disagree. He doesn’t lower his camera that’s pointed at her, though, only stares at her with a confused look on his face.

The patented confused puppy look all the Blakes can do, but he does the best.

‘I don’t think I got the joke. Or the reference.’

Clarke smiles at him. ‘I wasn’t joking. I like you. I do think we should give dating a try.’

‘Huh.’

‘Yeah. What are your thoughts on this?’

‘I don’t know. What are my thoughts on this?’

‘Well…’ Clarke turns off the heat and pours the sauce over the meat, stirring lightly again. She turns her back ot their dinner-in-the-making and leans against the counter. ‘I think you don’t disagree, either.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I never really thought about it.’

Bellamy sets the camera on the table, but it’s still on and it’s still pointed at her – not that she minds. For the past five or so years, the camera has been one of her best friends. Another one of them, the boy in question, still has the confused look on his face. She feels good about the whole situation, though; his shoulders are a little tense and he’s still a little scrawny because college football isn’t really for him and it’s taking him ages to grow into his height, but he doesn’t look nervous.

‘Lies. You’re just scared,’ she tells him.

‘Of?’

‘Giving this a try. Getting hurt. Attachment.’

‘All of that?’

‘And more.’

‘You seem pretty certain about this.’

‘Bellamy,’ says Clarke, ‘if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be saying all of this.’ He doesn’t say anything, so she stirs the pot again, and steps away from the cooker. Closer to him. ‘Do you trust me?’

He gulps, but nods.

Clarke closes the distance between them. Hands on his cheeks, she places a kiss on his lips.

When Bellamy wraps his hands around her waist and pulls her closer, it’s the start of something everyone and no one expected. Nearly nothing changes, bar the kissing and the sex and the coupley things. They stick to their rule of no significant others in front of the camera, so they never clarify that there has been a change in their relationship status. Their viewers simply assume they’re dating people off camera, and some assume they’re dating each other, but the common reaction is ‘no, they would’ve told us’.

They keep this up for the next three years. Even when they move in together after Clarke graduated, they don’t say anything.

‘We’re not really keeping this a secret, at all,’ Clarke tells Raven one time she comes over.

‘Then how do you explain it?’

‘We’re just not… I’d say the word is “affectionate”. Not on camera, I mean. It’s the only thing that changed, and we hugged and kissed each other’s cheeks before we got together, and everything people see on our channels is the same.’

‘But you’re still keeping this from your viewers.’

‘We’re not keeping it from them!’ argues Clarke. ‘We just don’t have the need to point it out.’

‘Clarke,’ Raven says, ‘you have over two million subscribers, and Bellamy has over four. Your joint second channel has nearly a million. That’s arguably around five million people watching you.’

‘You’re just trying to make me feel guilty about this.’

‘Well, like it or not, you’ve been keeping this from people for three years now. You’re both getting bigger, and it’s gonna get out. You either want to be in control in how that happens or suffer the consequences when it comes as a surprise.’

Raven’s words get stuck in Clarke’s head so about two weeks later, she tells Bellamy about them. They spend the next two weeks compiling all the videos they have of each other that are unseen by their viewers – videos that show they’re more than just friends.

It’s Bellamy’s job to assemble the footage, so Clarke only sees it when it’s posted.

‘Do you trust me?’ he asks before publishing it without her supervision.

Clarke kisses him. It’s a statement in itself.

He hands her a pair of earphones and she cuddles up next to him, with his laptop on her lap. When she presses play, the video is still at zero views.

It begins with The 1975's Mine fading in with a black background, softly. With the first note of the piano there is a clip of Clarke’s face from the clip they never published – the one where she tells him how she feels about him. This is before that, and she’s smiling at something he said, and it makes her realize how far they’ve come so much she nearly begins crying at that moment. Several seconds in, it’s their song playing, slowed down, and she can’t take it.

Bellamy grips her tigher, pulls her closer to his chest. She can feel his heart beating, but the video is all she can focus on.

For the majority of it, it’s the footage of either one of them. There’s some Clarke has never seen, or has forgotten about; there are videos of when they were kids, which she’s certain he’s taken from Wells or her parents. There are bits and pieces of their lives that she never paid a lot of attention to, like the painting she made in her senior year that Bellamy hung up on his dorm room wall; a smudge on a wall in their new house from when he accidentally missed a brush and touched the wall with paint on his fingers. There are bits and pieces of their life that make it a life, and not just a show for their viewers, and it makes Clarke cry.

Bellamy just holds her.

She’s in love with him, and he’s in love with her, too. If there are ever moments when she doubts either of those, this is the video that will remind her that there’s no way it couldn’t be true. This is an art for the two of them – this is how they decided to represent their relationship to the world. It’s soft and vulnerable and feels like a song, or a butterfly’s touch, or a baby’s smile. It feels effervescent and beautiful and surreal.

When the music stops and it’s a song she’s never heard, but very clearly Bellamy singing, she starts almost sobbing. Bellamy presses a kiss to her temple, but doesn’t say anything.

‘When we decided to do this, to present the three years of our relationship to our viewers, I knew exactly how to do this. It’s been eight years now since we met, since we became friends – and those have been the eight best years of my life.’

The tone of the videos changes. It shows Clarke alone, mostly, painting or singing or reading or cooking or doing anything else she does off camera. If Bellamy’s in the footage, it’s scarce, and the sole focus is on her – on what she looks like in his eyes.

She has to blink, rapidly, to usher the tears from blurring her vision.

‘When I told her I liked her videos, I had a crush on her. I was a fan. I didn’t know she had a crush on me, too. We went through a lot in the next five years, but no matter what happened, we stayed together. When she told me she likes me, she knew better than I did that I liked her just as much.’

‘There’s a lot I could say about her, but I think that she’s the kind of beautiful I couldn’t do justice. You can’t put in words something you see every day, because you don’t notice how good you have it. I know I love her. I know why I do, too, and it’s because the person you see in this is who Clarke truly is. She’s even better in person than she presents herself on YouTube.’

‘So, now I think you know how I feel about her. And Clarke, in case you don’t—’

Bellamy’s voice cuts off and the video goes black. She holds her breath, involuntarily – then it’s a clip of him, grinning at the camera, and looking down as he writes something on a piece of paper. He holds it up and it takes the camera a few moments to focus, but when it does, his voice is back — ‘Will you marry me?’

The video cuts off and she takes her earbuds out, turning around.

‘I love you,’ she says.

Bellamy smiles. Bites her lip; nervous.

‘And yes, I’ll marry you.’

He laughs the heavenly laugh, as if a heavy burden is off his chest, and kisses her like never before. He takes a ring from somewhere and puts it on her ring finger and god, she’s never been happier.

Needless to say, almost none of their viewers are very surprised when they get married two years later, at the anniversary of their ten years of being friends.

[aimeraiwrites]

Mat/Dante and #14 for the soulmate au prompts?

[yes it’s been several months and i’m just getting back to finishing the backlog of prompted things but!! this was pretty much complete in my docs so]

Mat’s lucky his right hand is the one that he used to grab Dante, all those years ago. Most people ask him if he shook hands with his soulmate, and he can say that it was something like that, while smiling convincingly enough at them. The truth is, he’s not even sure Dante remembers that Mat had grabbed Dante that first time to keep Dante from tripping and falling, pulling him closer. It feels like a fitting way to start their story.

Mat feels like he’s going to spend the rest of his life trying to pull Dante closer. After all, it’s what their marks symbolise, and he knows he cares way too much about soulmarks, but he wishes it didn’t constantly feel like Dante was slipping through Mat’s fingers. They could’ve both gone NCAA, but Mat chose the Thunderbirds. They could’ve both gone to the Thunderbirds, but Dante picked the NCAA. Mat got drafted to the Islanders, and Dante got drafted to a team halfway across the country, and that was out of their control. But then Mat finally makes his way up to the big leagues, and Dante chooses to finish school. He doesn’t even know how he’s kept Dante all these years, wonders if they’d be friends still if not for the soulmarks, and then feels ungrateful for thinking about it like that. Dante does care. He has to, right?

That’s Mat being ungrateful again, because he knows Dante cares, but the way Dante cares doesn’t make sense to Mat at all. Mat doesn’t know what he means to Dante. Mat doesn’t know, and he’s too afraid to ask, and it’s killing him a little. A lot. It’s killing him a lot, and the only reason he’s thinking about it is because he’s been drinking some top-shelf stuff. It’s an anniversary of sorts, almost, and he’s alone in the empty apartment he bought himself. Dante is still in Boston, but Mat’s already back in BC. He won’t call Dante, though, because Dante has exams and friends and a life back in Boston that Mat isn’t part of, and because if he calls Dante, he might tell him about all of this and then Dante will really be disappointed in him, because Mat is being clingy and irrational, and he knows it, but Dante is his soulmate.

He opens his phone anyway, thinks of sending a text to Dante, just wondering what he’s up to, but Dante texts him like he knew Mat was thinking of him. Mat goes to open the text, but he ends up pressing dial and doesn’t realise till the call goes through. It’s too late to hang up, because Dante picks up immediately.

“Hi Mat,” Dante says, and he sounds so happy that Mat is involuntarily smiling at his half-full glass.

“Hey Dante,” Mat says, and he sounds way more wasted than he thought he was. He thought he was tipsy but he’s edging towards full drunk, his true emotions obvious in his voice the way they never are sober.

“Happy anniversary,” Dante says. “Or like, not for you yet but it’s past midnight here and I don’t know if I can stay up till 3am.”

“Anniversary?” Mat says, through lips gone numb.

Dante sounds a little sheepish. “It is, right? Ten years, to the day.”

“I didn’t know you kept track,” Mat says and now he feels kinda shitty, drinking alone and already drunk and it’s not even the day while Dante apparently stayed up just to wish him.

“Mat,” Dante says, and he sounds funny in a way Mat can’t describe but knows is less smiley. “Of course I would. It’s ten years of both of us.”

“There’s an us?” Mat asks, before he can self-edit. He’s drunk but even he knows that it’s a misstep, and so fucking untrue.

Dante sounds a lot less smiley now, but he doesn’t sound mad. Mat thinks he would be furious, if Dante ever said something like that to him, but they’re not the same at all for soulmate things, so he can’t say he’s surprised. “Mat, can I FaceTime you?”

“Sure,” Mat says, and the request pops up immediately.

When he answers it, Dante shows up on the screen, somewhere surprisingly well lit, his hair looking like he’s been running his fingers through it, more unruly than usual. He looks stressed and visibly exhausted, and Mat wants nothing more than to crawl into bed with him, all of a sudden, just to make sure he’s getting enough sleep. Or barring that, he wants to at least get on a goddamn plane and see him. He doesn’t know what it would do, except that he wants to, even though he’ll be more of a distraction than not.

Dante musters up a smile seeing Mat, but it fades quickly. “Mat, you know there’s an us, right?” he says, and he sounds so serious and so believing, and Mat doesn’t understand. It didn’t feel like Dante cared as much, but then he wouldn’t have answered the call. Wouldn’t have remembered that it’s been ten years since they gave each other matching red handprints. Wouldn’t be affirming that there’s an us to them.

“I didn’t mean it the way it came out,” Mat says, because if he can take it back they don’t have to talk about this on their tenth anniversary, because he can’t see it ending any way but unhappily.

Dante sucks on his lower lip and runs his free hand through his hair, messing it up further, showing off the hand print encircling his left wrist like a manacle. “How did you mean it, Mat?”

Dante isn’t giving him an easy out here. Mat fumbles with the words, but comes up empty, a long silence where he’s the sole focus of Dante’s attention. He reaches for the glass instead and takes a sip to brace himself, but Dante catches on immediately

“Are you drunk?” Dante asks. He doesn’t sound accusing, just thoughtful and a little worried.

Mat shakes his head. “Not really.”

“Mat, are you okay? It’s barely nine there.”

Mat shrugs. He doesn’t know what answer Dante wants and Dante doesn’t seem to be gunning for a fight, but he doesn’t know. “I just miss you,” he says plaintively. “I don’t know if I’m allowed.”

Dante’s face looks visibly devastated. This is worse than if Mat had shot him, the look on his face, hurt and disbelief warring with each other. “Mat. Mat, what do you think you are to me?”

“Your soulmate?” Mat answers, because that is fairly obvious. “What else is there?”

Dante closes his eyes and swallows, lashes casting shadows under his eyes. “Mat,” he says, his voice measured and tight. A ‘we’re down by two but we have a period left to play and we can do this’ voice. “I know I’m not great at words, but you’re…”

He shakes his head and looks back at Mat, frustrated. “You’re everything to me. I thought you knew.”

“Because we’re soulmates,” Mat finishes.

“Because you’re you,” Dante corrects. “We have marks and they match. Cool. Great. But I’d rather not have the marks and have you. A mark’s just a mark, but you’re you. And I–”

He cuts himself off again, and smiles a little wryly. “I don’t even know if I’m making sense, but you know I love you. You’re the best part of my summers and it’s great that we’re soulmates, but there would be an us anyway. Or–I’d want there to be an us.”

“Me too,” Mat says, because Dante looks nervous, and he shouldn’t when he’s said all these things that Mat’s been waiting to hear for forever and a day, from the first time they touched. Mat honestly feels a little stupid, now, for thinking that Dante doesn’t care, because he obviously cares. He cares so much. It’s written all over his face and the way he said it like it hurt that Mat didn’t already know.

Dante sighs like he’s relieved, slumping back a little. “You do know I love you, right?”

“Yeah,” Mat says. Doesn’t add the ‘I know now’ because it’ll only hurt both of them. He thought, even before, but it’s something different to know, because Dante has said it, even if Mat doesn’t know how he means it. Love can mean anything; love can be everything, and Dante doesn’t seem to treat him any different. Mat buys into grand romances. Dante doesn’t. Mat doesn’t know what a love like that would look like on Dante, because the love he gives Mat is like a security blanket. He doesn’t really know if Dante does romance, just that he doesn’t do grand romance. He wants to know, though. Not all soulmates are romantic, but he wants to know, because Dante’s love still isn’t something Mat can touch and understand.

It’s like Dante knows what Mat is thinking. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

Mat freezes, and Dante makes a quiet sound that Mat thinks is going to be pressed into his memory forever.

“What do I have to do to prove it to you?” Dante asks, and he sounds so fucking hopeless that it’s all the proof that Mat really needs, or ever will need. Maybe it’s not Mat’s kind of love, but even if it isn’t, Mat is taking it far too lightly.

“You don’t,” Mat says. “I’m just being me.”

Dante just looks at him with a capital-L Look, till Mat feels defensive about it. “What?”

“Sometimes, you’re such an idiot,” Dante tells him. “Let me rephrase: I don’t have to prove it to you, but I want to, because I hate that you ever doubted it at all.”

He’s blushing bright red and honestly, this might be the most feelings sharing that they’ve done about each other since the time they were screaming at each other about where Dante was going to go play. That time didn’t involve even an ounce of the vulnerability Mat’s feeling now, and he doesn’t know if Dante’s ever told him so much about the bond and them and how he feels. Dante is an open book except for when it comes to these kinds of things; he keeps his love close.

“I don’t need it now,” Mat says, and hopes Dante believes him.

He doesn’t. His jaw does a thing, and Dante can be as headstrong as Mat. More, even. Mat hasn’t seen this face in years, and Mat is tired and drunk and–

“Dante,” he says, softly, and Dante’s face modulates, still stubborn, but somehow not as fierce. This is a Dante who will yield, who Mat can coax down. “You don’t talk, you know.”

Dante opens his mouth but Mat cuts him off before he can even start. “I mean, you don’t talk about soulmate things, or things that matter, and I need that.”

Dante sits there, frowning at Mat. “I didn’t know.”

“I mean, I never told you,” Mat says. He didn’t want to appear too needy, and it’s not like Dante isn’t wonderful, but it makes being apart so hard, because Dante is inscrutable over text. “I thought it would be too much.”

“So, should I tell you I love you every day?” Dante asks, all focus.

If Mat told him yes, right now, he’d do it without question and mean it every time, because Dante is like that. But Mat’s heart wouldn’t be able to take hearing it every day, and it’s already struggling, going dangerously fast. Has been for most of this conversation, partly fear, mostly elation.

Mat licks his lips. “Don’t do that.”

“So what should I do?” Dante asks.

“Just talk more,” Mat says.

“Like what? Like, do you want to hear that I think about you every time I see my wrist?” Dante asks, and his face is so red but he’s still talking. “Or that sometimes I miss you so much it hurts? Because I’d do anything to have you here right now.”

Mat is not sure he’s still breathing, pulse thundering in his ears. “I could fly out.”

He’d been thinking of it as a ridiculous idea earlier but the way Dante lights up, despite the bags under his eyes. Yeah, it’s not ridiculous at all.

“Would you?”

“I thought about it earlier,” Mat admits, and Dante’s almost glowing, wanting. How could Mat have thought it was a stupid idea at all? “You sure you want me around even with finals?”

Dante shrugs off finals like they’re nothing. “I always want you around, finals can deal.”

“Then I’ll come,” Mat says, like it’s that easy, but it is. “We can come back home together.”

Dante’s smiling at him like–Mat doesn’t know what to call that look, just that it warms him up, makes his face feel hot enough that he’s sure Dante will notice. “I’d like that.”

It’s weird, Mat thinks distantly, that it wasn’t a ‘that’d be sick, bro.’ Not a bad weird, and not worth focusing on when he has tickets to book and bags to pack, but still weird.

Dante yawns in the middle of Mat trying to remember what he needs to pack, and Mat blinks and looks at the time. “Shit, you should be asleep right now.”

“’S fine,” Dante says, around another yawn that practically cracks his jaw. “Needed to talk to you.”

“More than you needed to sleep?” Mat asks dryly, back on familiar ground.

Dante wrinkles his nose. “It’s our anniversary, and I wanted.”

Mat doesn’t know what to say to that, just smiles, probably like an idiot. “I’ll be out on the earliest flight I can get.”

“Perfect,” Dante says, before beaming. “We’ll get to spend our anniversary together.”

“What, are you planning something nice?” Mat asks, more because he can than because he’s expecting it.

Dante shrugs. “I’d rather stay in and spend time with you. I miss the way your–” He cuts himself off, but Mat just knows what it would have been. 

“Soft. So fucking soft.”

“I didn’t get to finish, but I’m not going to be sorry about being soft about you,” Dante says, and he’s yawning again, and Mat should really have sent him to bed minutes ago, but he’s going to hoard every minute of Dante he can get, never mind that he’s going to see him tomorrow. “Hey, ’m gonna go back to my room, but if I put in my earphones and hide under the covers I can talk to you till I fall asleep? Just make sure you text me your flight details.”

Dante falls asleep maybe ten minutes after he ends up in his bed, and Mat’s pretty sure he just made it through their conversation through sheer stubbornness. He’s smiling down at his phone like an idiot, anyway, but there’s no one to see him in his apartment, still kinda tipsy, but some of that has to be the joy, the invincibility that comes with knowing that Dante loves him. Maybe not Mat’s kind of love, but love enough that Mat can fly to the other side of the country just because Dante wants him there.

[sugarclerk3]

Why Everyone Is Dead Improper About Minecraft Server And Why You Need To Learn This Report

And when installing any mod, ensure that it matches the model of Minecraft that you're taking part in. Minecraft Preview for Home windows is Right here! With that said, what options are you most excited to test in Minecraft Preview? He has written many journals on this which can be well favored by the folks. As far as I can tell, the 3DS model is equivalent to the Pc release in nearly each means: the identical C64-type graphics, featuring monochrome smiley-face individuals towards (non-compulsory) flashing geometric backgrounds; the same fully explorable world of huge expanses of house, unimaginable mazes, and so many spikes; the same brilliant chiptune soundtrack. 13 per 30 days is a reasonably honest value here so far as ISPs are concerned. Found during a bug bounty engagement in opposition to Minecraft servers, the vulnerability is much more impactful than some would possibly anticipate, primarily due to Log4j’s close to-ubiquitous presence in nearly all major Java-based mostly enterprise apps and servers. Rokanthemes.com If the mod still does not work, there may be a battle with one other mod you're working. If that doesn't work, be sure that the mod file is designed for a similar model of Minecraft that you are running.

The sport has been running for fairly a while now, so there is no shortage of content; the game just lately added a Battle Royale mode and has Steam Workshop help for mods. Build machines that you will ride into battle in an enviornment, and pit them in opposition to the creations of other gamers. Let players help me determine the place to go next. However with so many mods on the market, simply getting began could be overwhelming. The overwhelming majority of Minecraft mods - including all those listed here - are constructed for Minecraft: Java Edition. Digital versions of soccer, baseball, golf and cricket, and so on. are quite common among the avid gamers. We're holding observe of the top web suppliers here on CNET, so we'll add the perfect web affords for avid gamers to this checklist every time we spot them. The excellent news is that almost all gamers share their information about the best servers out there on the market, what to avoid and so forth, thus serving to you discover an appropriate server that you may play on. There are lots of servers you can be a part of for this function, however every of them has its personal options.

The "islands" you visit are all randomly-generated and you will scour these islands for the materials and resources you will need to upgrade your objects. You've got received the same old blocky (but clear) aesthetic, with the gathering resources and constructing, with a Dragon Quest story slapped on top of it, with you filling in the shoes of a legendary builder. The Dragon Quest video games aren't something you'd historically affiliate with Minecraft, however Dragon Quest Builders is strictly that; Dragon Quest meets Minecraft. Mike Schramm (@MikeSchramm): I received myself a pre-launch copy of Punch Quest on iOS -- the game would not come out until later this month, but at this rate I am going to have all of it beat by then. The recreation total world is manufactured up out of assorted blocks, ranging from filth to cobblestone, to practically every thing. Press M whereas taking part in to deliver up a massive map of the complete world, which you'll be able to scroll by at your pleasure.

And if there's a specific merchandise in your inventory that you need to know more about, hover your mouse over it and press R or U to see its recipe or makes use of, respectively. Minecraft is an immersive recreation which appeals to those who play professionally and in addition those that want to spend some time and analysis their creativity. The net answer is the one you'll be able to rely on when you want to get along with customers you haven't even met and could be very unlikely you will meet in real life. Many Open Supply projects like the Minecraft server, Paper, have already begun patching their utilization of log4j2. These have also grow to be the true supply of leisure for the world. For the extra PvP focused Minecraft gamers, we have now Robocraft. The shop lets you obtain it solely for those who already personal a replica of the Minecraft Bedrock Version. Minecraft has gained immense popularity.

[mygoateecreation]

Look For Words In A Text On Mac

Set up Dictation

How To Search For Words In A Text

Italic Words In A Text

Unknown Words In A Text

Alphabetical Index Of All The Words In A Text

Keyboard shortcuts in Word for Mac. Look up selected text on the Internet + Shift + L. For the best experience using your keyboard with the ribbon, try switching your keyboard settings to All Controls, as follows: Open System Preferences ( + Space, type system preference, and hit Enter). On the Format Text tab and Editing group, select Find. In the window that opens, enter the word or phrase you want to highlight in the Find What field. Click or tap Reading Highlight at the bottom of the window to highlight the word or phrase you selected. Manually searching for specific words or phrases on large Web pages is usually a waste of time; use the Find bar in the major Web browsers to find what you're looking for in seconds. Internet Explorer 11, Mozilla Firefox 37, Google Chrome 42 and Safari for Windows can search Web pages for words or entire phrases and highlight them for you.

Choose Apple () menu > System Preferences, click Keyboard, then click Dictation. Turn on Dictation and choose from these Dictation options:

Choose whether to use Enhanced Dictation, which lets you use dictation when you're not connected to the Internet.

Choose your language and dialect. Some languages, such as English, have multiple dialects.

Choose the keyboard shortcut you will use to start start dictating.

Choose your preferred microphone from the pop-up menu below the microphone icon.

In macOS Sierra, you can ask Siri to “turn on Dictation” for you. Siri isn't the same as Dictation, but you can ask Siri to compose short messages, such as email and text messages.

Add Text to Photos with Preview App on Mac This built-in app is rarely the first choice for Mac users who want to add text to photos, but completing this task with Preview App is remarkably easy. Open the app and import the photo you want to edit, then make sure to click on the 'Show Edit Toolbar' icon and select the 'Text Tool' feature. Photo text for mac. May 16, 2013  Adding text to images is a fairly simple process to begin with that is made even easier with Preview, the basic image viewing app that is bundled on all Macs. To convert PDF images to text on Mac, you must consider two aspects: freeware or share & security issue. As I have mentioned you should use Google Docs to obtain text from PDF image. It really is free. However you can search the document or copy text from it (and on a Mac spotlight will index the document so you can find the document with a spotlight search). This is great if you want to scan paper documents and then destroy the paper. Leawo Mac converters allow people to apply image or text watermark to output files in easy clicks. Select a media file, right click it and choose Media Edit option to enter the video editing panel. Then, click Watermark tab to do watermark settings.

Sublime Text is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. One license is all you need to use Sublime Text on every computer you own, no matter what operating system it uses. Sublime Text uses a custom UI toolkit, optimized for speed and beauty, while taking advantage of native functionality on each platform. Sublime Text 3 may be downloaded from the Sublime Text 3 page. This is the recommended version of Sublime Text to use, and is available for Windows, OS X and Linux. This is the recommended version of Sublime Text to use, and is available for Windows, OS X and Linux. Download sublime text editor. Sublime Text is a text editor for code, HTML, and prose. It features rich selection of editing commands, including indenting or un-indenting, paragraph reformatting, line joining, multiple.

Use Dictation

Go to a document or other text field and place the insertion point where you want your dictated text to appear.

Press the keyboard shortcut for starting dictation, or choose Edit > Start Dictation. The default shortcut is Fn Fn (press the Fn key twice). When your Mac is listening, it displays a microphone to the left or right of the page, aligned with the insertion point. If you turn on advanced dictation commands, the microphone appears in the lower-right corner of your screen, and you can drag it to another position. When your Mac can hear you, the input meter inside the microphone rises and falls as you speak.

Speak the words that you want your Mac to type. Dictation learns the characteristics of your voice and adapts to your accent, so the more you use it, the better it understands you. If it doesn't understand you, learn what to do.

To stop dictating, click Done below the microphone icon, press Fn once, or switch to another window.

Speak the following words to enter punctuation or other characters. These may vary by language or dialect.

apostrophe '

open bracket [

close bracket ]

open parenthesis (

close parenthesis )

open brace {

close brace }

open angle bracket <

close angle bracket >

colon :

comma ,

dash -

ellipsis …

exclamation mark !

hyphen -

period, point, dot, or full stop .

question mark ?

quote ”

end quote ”

begin single quote '

end single quote '

semicolon ;

ampersand &

asterisk *

at sign @

backslash

forward slash /

caret ^

center dot ·

large center dot •

degree sign °

hashtag or pound sign #

percent sign %

underscore _

vertical bar |

dollar sign $

cent sign ¢

pound sterling sign £

euro sign €

yen sign ¥

cross-eyed laughing face XD

frowny face :-(

smiley face :-)

winky face ;-)

copyright sign ©

registered sign ®

trademark sign ™

equals sign =

greater than sign >

less than sign <

minus sign -

multiplication sign x

plus sign +

caps on (formats next phrase in title case)

caps off (resumes default letter case)

all caps (formats next word in ALL CAPS)

all caps on (proceeds in ALL CAPS)

all caps off (resumes default letter case)

new line (adds line break)

numeral (formats next phrase as number)

roman numeral (formats next phrase as Roman numeral)

new paragraph (adds paragraph break)

no space on (formats next phrase without spaces)

no space off (resumes default spacing)

tab key (advances cursor to the next tab stop)

If you turned on Enhanced Dictation, you can also use dictation commands to bold, italicize, underline, select, copy, delete, undo, and perform other actions.

About Enhanced Dictation

Enhanced Dictation is available in OS X Mavericks v10.9 or later. With Enhanced Dictation:

You can dictate continuously.

You can dictate without being connected to the Internet.

Your words might convert to text more quickly.

You can use dictation commands to tell your Mac what to do.

Without Enhanced Dictation, your spoken words and certain other data are sent to Apple to be converted into text and help your Mac understand what you mean. As a result, your Mac must be connected to the Internet, your words might not convert to text as quickly, and you can speak for no more than 40 seconds at a time (30 seconds in OS X Yosemite or earlier).

If you're on a business or school network that uses a proxy server, Dictation might not be able to connect to the Internet. Have your network administrator refer to the list of network ports used by Apple software products.

About Dictation and privacy

To learn about Dictation and privacy, choose Apple () menu > System Preferences, click Keyboard, click Dictation, then click the About Dictation & Privacy button. At all times, information collected by Apple is treated in accordance with Apple’s Privacy Policy.

Learn more

To use dictation on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, tap the microphone on the onscreen keyboard, then speak. Consult your iPhone or iPad user guide for details.

If the Slow Keys or Sticky Keys feature is turned on in the Accessibility pane of System Preferences, the default keyboard shortcuts for dictation might not work. If you need to use those accessibility features, create a custom dictation shortcut: Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Keyboard, click Dictation, then choose “Customize” from the Shortcut menu.

Home > Articles > Apple > Operating Systems

If the text is still not distributed equally, you may want to use space bar or ‘Tab’ to push the text. The handle allows you to adjust the extent of distribution of text around the path: If you want to distribute the text equally around the circle, pull the handle to draw a full circle. How do you edit text in a pdf. The result will be as like shown here.

␡

Find and Replace Words or Phrases

< BackPage 2 of 13Next >

This chapter is from the book

How To Search For Words In A Text



Mac OS X Lion: Peachpit Learning Series

This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book 

Find and Replace Words or Phrases

Did you write your entire screenplay using your sweetheart’s name, Hamlet, as the hero? And now Hamlet has abandoned you and you want to replace the hero’s name with Romeo? No problem:

Italic Words In A Text

From the Edit menu, choose “Find..,” or press Command F. A search field appears below the ruler bar.

Click the “Replace” checkbox to open a Replace text field below the search field.

In the Find field, type the word you want to find, such as Hamlet.

In the Replace field, type the word or phrase that will replace the found word, such as Romeo.

Find and replace:

Replace: Replaces the currently selected occurrence of the word or phrase, then automatically finds the next occurrence.

All: Replace all occurrence of the found text. Press (don’t click) on the “All” button to see more options.

To manually find other occurrence of the text, click the Previous and Next buttons.

For more search options, click the small double-arrows next to the magnifying glass icon on the left side of the window.

Click “Done” to put the Find and Replace fields away.

Related Resources

Book $55.99

Unknown Words In A Text

Book $55.99

Alphabetical Index Of All The Words In A Text

Book $55.99

[onceuponamirror]

little bells

///// CHAPTER 2

summary: She just wanted to close the book, but all chapters are meant to be read.

Or, how she accidentally willed a boyfriend into existence.

fandom: riverdale ship: betty x jughead words: 9k chapters: 2/4

[read from the beginning] [read the latest]

.

.

.

The way Betty sees it, she has three options.

Option A is to just to flat out come clean. This is, objectively, probably the wisest move. Betty is not a great liar, whereas Cheryl is an excellent reader between lines, and Veronica could be hurt by the deception. And realistically, she probably won’t get very far into this plan as it is.

All Betty has to do is just sit Veronica down, explain that she’d been overwhelmed in the moment, and hope that Veronica’s well-placed but overbearing sense of duty over Betty’s happiness will subside.

As if.

It’s fairly unlikely that this will at all play out in a way that appeases everyone; Betty knows Veronica far too well to be that naïve.

Cheryl will happily summon a rainstorm of I told you so’s and Veronica will just circle back to her original argument: that Betty shouldn’t be going alone, or better yet, not at all.

And then she’s just back at square one, which is the moral equivalent of clapping her hands over her ears and singing her la-la-la’s while Veronica paces in front of her, demanding they eschew tradition. And Cheryl would probably be in the back, flatly suggesting Betty cut through the red tape and just hire an escort to be done with it.

But Option B is the gamble.

Option B is that Betty should just ask Jughead out, make dating him legitimate, and then, at some point next month, casually drop that she really needs a date to this wedding they’d been vaguely talking about before and try to convince him to accompany her.

And in some regards, this feels like the obvious solution. It certainly wouldn’t be the worst, either.

She’s definitely attracted to him, and rarer still, she even thinks he’s funny. But it would also feel like she was using him, somehow, and she cannot do that, even if she was being generous and saying there’s at least a chance it’s mutual.

Even though the only thing she has to go on is that Nancy said he wasn’t a talker, but he certainly didn’t seem to mind talking to her. Still, that feels like a flimsy basis for romance.

Not to mention that extremely awkward hug outside the building last week, the way he’d barely moved but to pat her on the back, like she was some kind of old, sick dog that he felt sorry for.

Frankly, he’d looked more like he’d been kicked in the stomach than actually enjoyed it, so considering that, she’s definitely not sure of anything. She knows, at least thanks to Nancy’s seating chart, he’s probably still single, but that doesn’t mean that he’s interested in girls, let alone her.

Plus, even if he did agree to one date with her, that’s absolutely no guarantee he’d agree to more, let alone such a big one like a wedding.

So if she asks him out, and he turns her down or they break up, that pretty much kills her plan right there in the cradle. She wonders if maybe that would be for the best, if she should just end this here and now, because really, how well can this end? How can she even actually properly execute it?

Betty can be called a lot of things, but scheming is not one of them.

But she knows her best friend well enough to realize Veronica will never let this go otherwise, so Betty considers Option C, which oddly, and completely illogically, feels like the safest bet.

Option C is just to talk to Jughead, explain what she’s done, and beg him to help her out anyway. At least with that option, there’s the tiniest chance that he’ll take pity on her.

After all, they have already talked about how miserable weddings are, which is why she thinks he might have a bit of sympathy for her situation. She definitely doesn’t know him well enough to ask of it as a favor, however; she’ll have to come up with something to offer him in thanks or payment. She can clean his apartment. Cook him dinner for a month straight? Or edit a manuscript he’s not ready to show Nancy? No, that feels redundant. Why would he want that, when he already has an editor?

She doesn’t even know him well enough to know what he’d want in return, and that feels like a bit of a sign, one that weighs heavy in her stomach as she crosses down the corridor, towards Nancy’s office.

With a big, steadying breath, Betty raps lightly against Nancy’s doorframe. She looks up from her desk, a grin already in place. “Hey sugar,” she greets fondly, folding her arms over her desk. “What’s up?”

“Um,” Betty starts, trying to steel herself. But she’s going to have to sacrifice her dignity several times over for this plan to work, and this, unfortunately, is where it must start. She takes another breath. “Well, I’ll just say it: Jughead…is he straight? Or, at least interested in women?”

Nancy blinks, and then her lips purse into a smile. “Of course, I’ve never asked him, but he once brought a girl to a fundraiser we threw. And based on his choice of heroines, it’s arguable that he’s even got a thing for blondes,” she adds, giving Betty an obvious once over.

Her cheeks warm, and her mouth opens and closes once, simultaneously searching for her next words while warring her instinct to bat away compliments. Luckily, Nancy comes to her rescue. “Let me guess. You want his number?”

Betty laces and re-laces her fingers. “Maybe his email?” She asks, and Nancy smirks, clicking the head of her ballpoint pen very decisively. She swivels back to her computer, types furiously for a few moments, and then copies something down onto a post-it note.

She rips it off cleanly, offering it out with the sticky side stuck to one very pointed finger. Betty scrambles forward to take it, her face still flushed red.

“You two make an odd amount of sense, actually,” Nancy adds, settling back onto her elbows. “Just don’t make things messy for me, if you can. I’d like not to be editing the story about the green-eyed girl who broke his heart next year.”

“The Van Morrison song that never was,” Betty chirps, forcing a smile, even as she privately thinks that of all the people involved in this plan, Jughead has the best likelihood of walking out of this unscathed—but, of course, tells Nancy none of that.

Once back at her own office, Betty closes the door and presses herself against the soft wood grain for a long moment, attempting to bottle her anxiety. She doesn’t know why this makes her feel so uniquely adolescent again; it’s not even a real flirtation, after all.

Obviously, she’s made overtures to men before. In fact, the entire reason she’s in this predicament at all is because of the time she got it in her head that she should try to initiate a relationship with a person who saw her as just a friend.

And here she goes again, with practically the same idea. But this time, Jughead probably doesn’t even see her as a friend. Doesn’t see her as an anything. What is wrong with her?

Perhaps she should start writing cookbooks.

She could call it, A Tablespoon of Salt: Select Recipes For the Hungry and Foolhardy.

Dear readers, simply add a teaspoon of irony, a drop of self-loathing, a cup of wastrel poetry, all the pleases in your kitchen cupboard, and voila! The perfect formula for repeating your past mistakes.

Betty closes her eyes and blows out a breath, gathering herself, and then marches forward to her desk and pulls up her email browser. Jughead’s address is simple, even if she doesn’t totally understand it—jfpj3 at a gmail account. Odd, but her first email address was an ode to a backstreet boy, so she’s in no place to judge.

Hey, Jughead!

It’s Cooper, Betty Cooper. Nancy gave me your email. Had something I wanted to talk to you about. Was just wondering if you’d like to maybe get a drink sometime?

No, no, that sounds terrible. What, is this her first time ever flirting? Is this even flirting? Technically, it’s not supposed to be. Anyway, in addition to trying too hard to be casual, asking to get drinks has too strong a connotation.

She aggressively hits the backspace button until the subject body is empty again, cradling her forehead with her free hand. 

Hey, Jughead!

It’s Betty, from Random House and/or the wedding, and/or the time you ran into me under the overhang of the office.

Nancy gave me your email address because there was something I wanted to run by you. Would you be able to meet for coffee sometime?

Best, Betty

She deletes a stupid smiley face from the end of the last sentence and rereads it, her teeth nibbling onto her bottom lip. This could almost pass as a professional inquiry, just vague enough to make him consider it. Betty nods to herself. This could work.

Hitting send before she can think twice, thrice, and then rewrite it four more times, Betty pushes back from her desk, willing herself not to sit there refreshing the page until her fingers bruise.

She decides to go make some tea in the break room, and hides away there, distractedly over-steeping her tea bag, until Nancy and another fiction editor appear in the doorway, in the middle of a conversation.

Nancy flashes her a large, knowing grin when she spots her, and Betty almost knocks over her drink in her haste to flee the room, because she’s apparently still feeling painfully immature about all of this.

But Nancy doesn’t know Betty’s intentions, doesn’t know it’s not real, and that seems to makes it all the worse, because Nancy thought they made sense and it just makes her feel like an asshole.

With nowhere else to go but back to her office, she drags her feet back there, once again closing a door she normally leaves open. She settles into her chair, places the tea mug down with care, and exhales slowly before checking her email.

There’s a response.

Hey Betty,

Yeah, I can do that. Want me to come up to the office tomorrow? There’s a couple of coffee haunts around your building, if memory serves.

-Jughead

It couldn’t have been that easy.

No questioning of her motives, no suspicious doublespeak? Just ‘yeah, I can do that’? And offering to come to her, even?

Blinking, she types back, No need to battle midtown on my behalf! You live in Brooklyn, right? I’m in Greenpoint. We could meet for coffee this weekend? I know a nice little café on Manhattan Ave. Or I could come to you. Just let me know!

A few minutes later, I’m actually in Greenpoint too, or just outside of it, anyway. This weekend is kind of busy for me, in that I’m supposed to be locked away in my room, listening to the new Mac DeMarco album and trying to dissect alt-alt-alt pet sounds. So if it’s all the same to you, I could meet tonight. Lmk.

Betty stares at the email. He wants to meet tonight? She then looks down at herself, at her outfit of a simple blue button up and jeans, of the slight stain blooming on her sleeve from sloshing her tea around, and has a moment of panic.

Fake date or not, she still wants to look a little cuter than this, or at least nominally better than the time he’d seen her outside the building, practically drenched in summer sweat.

But she could always leave a little early to go home and change, and decides that maybe it’s the right move, getting this over with. Waiting till the weekend would’ve just turned her into a wreck.

So she thinks of the nicest bar with the nicest lighting within proximity to her apartment, and writes back, Alright! Broken Land, on Franklin? How’s 7? Thanks!

Yep. See you then.

Once again wondering how in the hell that felt so easy and again cross-checking if Option B could actually work, she returns to the actual work she has to get done today at rush speed; she’s pretty sure her boss wouldn’t mind her taking off early, considering she’s only ever done that so rarely and usually for a long-established appointment, but once a goody-goody, always a goody-goody, as Cheryl might say.

She was too much of a nerd to ever cut class without good reason, and this is all more of the same; if she’s going to leave early, she better be done early too. And at quarter to five, she finishes up her last draft revision and prints it out to reread tonight at home, clicks off her computer, and then darts towards the elevators.

If she hurries her pace walking past Nancy’s office, she definitely won’t admit it.

.

.

.

Once home, Betty throws her bag down in the hallway and rushes to her bedroom.

Before living here, she would’ve never been such an impolite roommate as to drop all of her things by the door and kick her shoes off to land where they may, but the real benefit of her best friend’s dating life is that Betty has inherited Cheryl’s old place and her rent-control, and can finally, for the first time in her life, afford to live by herself.

It’s a little lonely at times, Betty having gotten used to all those years of hearing bumps in the night and the clattering of pans inopportunely and the grinding of coffee early in the morning, but in moments like these, where she’s scrambling for time and running around the apartment in just her underwear, she very much appreciates the solitude.

The train had been delayed between junctions for twenty minutes, which had effectively thrown off Betty’s attempt at being ahead of schedule, and now it’s past 6:30, and really, she should already be leaving to meet him.

She shakes down her ponytail, but finds her hair far too fluffed out a mess to allow to stay that way, so she gathers it back up, leaving a few framing tendrils around her face, deciding it’ll have to do. Despite a constant ebbing sense of comfort in the way she dresses, five minutes before she has to leave is probably not the time to start analyzing her appearance.

Betty digs through her drawers for something that catches her eye, and with half a grimace and half a spark of excitement, grabs for the little brown corduroy miniskirt she only breaks out for dates or at Veronica’s insistence, or usually both. But sometimes showing a little leg makes her feel more powerful, so it can’t hurt this time.

Pulling on a cap-sleeved pink top but deigning to leave the top couple buttons undone, she slips into a pair of low heels and snatches her purse back up from the floor, checking her reflection in the foyer mirror one last time.

Definitely a little more skin than normal, but not more than he’s already seen, thanks to her strapless little dress from the wedding. She applies a shade of blush lipstick and nods to herself in silent encouragement, and then heads out into the night.

She’s only been to this bar a couple of times; Cheryl claims to miss it once every couple of months and insists the three of them meet there so she can properly reminisce her old stomping grounds, as if they all don’t know she’s much happier in the Upper East Side with Veronica. But Betty never minds, as it’s always the easiest trek for her, a simple fifteen-minute walk from her appointment.

The bar is just as she remembers it; ambient, dimly lit but for the string of oversized twinkle-lights lining the ceiling, though this time sparsely occupied, given it’s a Tuesday.

She does a quick scan for Jughead, but appears to have beaten him, so she presses herself against the bar and orders a hard cider. She’s just finished placing her drink request when she feels a presence next to her; Jughead has arrived, dressed in what she’s learning is a typical window display of black clothing and drumming his knuckles along the counter top.

As they’re both standing between barstools, he’s close enough to reach out and hug, but she won’t be repeating that mistake again. He shifts from one foot to another, as if perhaps expecting her to.

“Hey,” he says finally, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye before turning to face her fully. He openly looks her up and down, mouth fidgeting with something else, but the bartender is returning with her drink and looking expectantly at Jughead, so he orders a beer and they wait in awkward silence while the bartender fills a glass from the well in front of them.

He reaches for his wallet, but Betty is already sliding her card across the counter. “It’s on me,” she says, smiling at him. “It’s the least I could do, for you agreeing to meet with me.”

Jughead’s brow very briefly creases, but he nods.

“Want your tab open or closed?” The bartender asks, plucking the card up from the bar.

Betty’s eyes dart to Jughead; if she says to leave it open, it implies she wants to stay here for a while. If she says to close it out, it could say the opposite. But this isn’t quite a social call, and she’s half-sure he’s going to want to run for the hills in about ten minutes, so Betty tells the bartender to close it out. If Jughead has a reaction to that, he doesn’t show it.

“I’ll get us a table,” he says instead, disappearing into the back of the bar with his beer in tow.

After she’s signed and tipped for the drinks, Betty finds Jughead in a lowly lit corner booth. He passes her a thin smile when he sees her, and the room is almost too dark to really tell, but she can almost swear his eyes are lingering on her legs as she approaches.

“So,” she says sharply, setting in across from him.

His eyebrows rise. “So,” he echoes, with an edge of amusement. “You said you wanted to run something by me?”

“Right,” Betty sighs, staking out a stalling sip of cider. Now’s the time to make her decision—Option B or Option C. Please date me, or please, please fake date me.

Golden light glitters in his eye as it falls on her, his expression curious but withheld all the same, and even if she thinks this kind of low, warm atmosphere certainly isn’t making him look less handsome, she can’t quite bring any words to her tongue.

And in a split second, she knows it’s going to be the safe option.

“Um, so I kind of did something stupid,” she says, all in a jumble.

Whatever he’d been waiting for, it certainly wasn’t that. His composure slips, eyes softening as his mouth curls upwards and, if she didn’t know any better, maybe charmed. “How’s that?” He asks, tilting his head at her.

“I did something really stupid,” Betty repeats, taking a big breath, though it does little to calm the ringing in her chest. “I have this friend, right? Veronica. She’s my oldest friend, my best friend, actually, and I love her, but she’s really…she picks a stance and won’t budge on it. No man is an island, but she is a rock. And it’s just hard to argue with her, you know?”

Based on his expression, Jughead clearly does not know, but he at least waits for her to continue.

“The only way to get her off your back is to either bow to what she wants, or to find a solution so perfect that she can’t argue with it,” Betty goes on, wringing her hands in her lap. “So, you might remember from Nancy’s wedding that we talked about this other wedding I have to go to in a couple of months. Um, of this guy I used to…have feelings for, and Veronica was really worried about me going to it alone, let alone pestering me about why I was going at all.”

Jughead nods, still obviously confused, and Betty realizes she’s doing a horrible job of explaining. However, on the bright side, she’s definitely doing a great job at rambling.

“I know it sounds dumb, but I want to go to his wedding because I really need closure from the whole thing. I just…he’s been hanging over my head for most of my life and I’m really trying to find a way to move past it. I think seeing him get married will be the final step,” she says, closing her eyes so she doesn’t have to face his reaction. Not that it helps; she can still feel him watching her.

“That doesn’t sound dumb,” Jughead says softly, and Betty’s eyelids flutter up, unable to stave off the hope blooming in her chest.

“Veronica was just…nagging me like crazy about it, and I’d had a long day at work, and I don’t really like talking about Archie in general, and she just kept pushing and pushing for me to find a date or she was going to come herself—which she can’t, she’s his ex—and I just really wanted her to stop, so I…I sort of said…you and I were already dating.”

Unfortunately for Jughead, he had just been sipping his beer, and he immediately chokes on it, sputtering through his attempt at swallowing. Eventually, he manages it, wiping at his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “What?”

“I know it was so out of line,” Betty says quickly, her eyes round with worry. “We barely even know each other. I mean, we’ve only met twice before tonight. But you were the first person to pop into my head that my friends didn’t already know, and…I just really wanted her to stop pushing me about it.”

He stares at her, jaw ticking, but his face otherwise completely unreadable. “So you’re telling me because…what, you want to clear your conscious? Look, I’m flattered that you’d pick me of all people, but Jesus, Betty, I think you’ll still get into heaven with one little lie on your chart.”

“No, I’m telling you because…that’s part one,” she says, all in one breath. Jughead’s tongue digs into his cheek thoughtfully, as if realizing where this is going. “I’ve thought this through a lot, probably more than I should’ve, and decided if I back out of the lie, Veronica’s just going to start all over again, or worse, try to find me a date herself.”

“I get it. You want me to come with you to the wedding,” Jughead correctly summarizes, settling back in his seat and surveying her. She can’t place the drive behind his eyes, but something moves there, blinking out like little headlights upon a dark road.

She nods. “Well…knowing my friends, you might have to show your face to them at least once, twice tops. Just to sell it and keep them off my back.”

“So, wedding date, and ersatz boyfriend,” he says with a wry grin. Betty takes it as a good sign; he’s at least not storming out. He doesn’t even look annoyed upon second glance, but rather, in the right light, perhaps pleased.

“Okay, yes. But you’d really be saving my skin,” Betty sighs, looking at him. “Just name your price. Obviously, nothing…funny,” she says lamely, and he blanches, for the first time looking offended. She presses her lips together, relieved. She hadn’t really been worried about that, but, like she herself said, she doesn’t really know him. “But I can cook, or um, I’m actually pretty good at fixing things, or—”

“I want to write about it,” Jughead interrupts, looking almost like he regrets the words immediately. He pauses, swallowing whatever thought is there. “No real names, no identifying features or places. But the story of someone consciously trying to move on from an old love is a new angle for me, and the symbolism around all the wedding stuff would be a good dog-ear for that. So…I’ll fake date you, as long as you promise not to sue me for defamation.”

Betty raises an eyebrow. “Are you planning on defaming me?”

“No, no,” Jughead says quickly, leaning forward across the table. “But I’ve been trying to break out from under the reviewing side of things, trying to write articles that actually mean something more. Honestly, this feels like the pitch I’ve been waiting for. So I’ll do it, just let me interview you once, and let me stay…observational. And I’d run everything by you before I submitted it anywhere, so you could pull anything you weren’t comfortable with.”

Of all the things she had been expecting him to say or do, this was definitely not it. She feels almost…disappointed, or maybe a little bit hurt, even as she immediately tries to chide the thought, foolish as it is.

After all, it’s not like she’d been hoping he would just gather her up in his arms, swearing fealty and that he’d do it for nothing but for a chance at her heart, like something cut out of an erstwhile Byronic monologue.

“Okay,” Betty breathes, nodding. “That…sounds fair. Deal,” she adds, offering him her hand to shake on it.

He almost looks surprised that she’s agreed so easily, but then again, she feels the same way. He reaches across the table and takes her hand. It feels warm and alive in her grip, like the fluttering of a moth desperately searching for a flame to call home.

“Okay, then. It’s a deal,” he agrees, and with a growing smile.

They shake, and while Betty distinctly muses that this is the best possible outcome she could’ve hoped for, she can’t quite dismiss that now-familiar tolling in her chest, the little song that urges her to turn back, turn back now.

And yet, unable to help herself, that little moth finds its light, pressed and warmed, and she returns his smile.

.

.

.

.

.

.

[thebetterminyard]

AFTG Valentine Exchange Part 1

Hello @groundopenwide ! I had the pleasure of creating some stuff for you as a Valentine’s Day gift. It is a bit Jerejean-centric, so I hope you can forgive that I didn’t get a chance to play around with the idea of Nicky/Matt (which I will totally do if you want me to, just saying). Anyways- I made you some edits, which I shall include in a separate post, but I felt they weren’t enough. So I wrote a Jerejean ficlet for you :) Enjoy, and happy Valentine’s Day, you lovely person ❤

~-~-~

When Jean had played with the Ravens, everything they did was a means to an end. Nothing was eaten, worn or said unless it served to improve performance on the court. Naturally, this meant alcohol was prohibited under every circumstance. Even after he had been with the Trojans for almost six months, Jean found it impossible to ingest alcohol without feeling the sharp burn of a blade or the stinging sensation of a slap. He avoided drinking at all costs, fearing for his self-control.

His teammates didn’t share those reservations. They’d won their game against TSU early that night, and bottles of whiskey and beer had manifested from thin air almost immediately after they’d gotten back to the dorms. Alvarez and Laila were already kissing each other’s faces off shamelessly, Laila with a half-empty bottle of beer and Alvarez with an empty bottle of whiskey in each hand. Everybody was hooting and dancing and singing tunelessly to some repetitive pop song, sloshing drinks everywhere and laughing when they slipped and fell in the puddles.

Jeremy was in the center of it all, wearing a shirt with a smiley face on it and a rather hard to ignore pair of rainbow boxers. His pants, Jean noted, had somehow made their way to the ceiling fan, where they made a dull “whoosh” sound as they spun round and round lazily. Jeremy seemed as if he could care less, his always-happy face somehow even more ecstatic than usual as he jumped around and busted out his very best drunk singing. The flush of his face made Jean smile a bit, as he followed the red blush down his cheeks and onto his slender neck. He caught himself staring quickly and tugged his eyes back to Jeremy’s, only to find them gazing directly into his own. Then it was his turn to blush profusely as the smiling boy made his way to the corner in which Jean stood, stiff and dark compared to the laughter and silliness everywhere else in the room.

“Jean,” Jeremy slurred with a grin, eyes all bright lights and dilated pupils and pretty blue. He practically fell onto Jean, tripping over his own feet and giggling. “Jean Jean Jean.”

“Jeremy Jeremy Jeremy,” Jean responded, humoring the young man as he smiled a bit. He stiffened slightly as a delicate hand was placed on his chest, the eyes of Jeremy glittering with something like mischief as he gazed up into Jean’s face. His hand began moving, slowly rubbing circles through Jean’s grey v-neck. The taller boy gritted his teeth as he suppressed a shiver.

“You’re pretty.” Jeremy stated matter-of-factly, nodding his head in agreement with himself as his other hand tapped Jean’s nose with a “boop!”. Jean stood as still as a stone, his heart thumping loudly and his eyes widened so much it was comical. He was fairly sure his mouth was hanging open, but he was too shocked to care.

“P-Pardon?” His accent had slipped in heavily and his voice sounded so gruff that he gave himself a firm shake to clear his head. He shook his head as if it could erase what Jeremy had just said. “No, you do not mean that. You are drunk.”

Even as he said it Jeremy was shaking his head stubbornly and tapping on Jean’s cheekbone with soft fingers. “No, I mean it! And I’m not that drunk, I only had…” He counted to eight on his fingers before he gave up and looked back to Jean. “Jean, I want to show you something.” “What is it?” Jean questioned nervously, struggling to keep his voice steady with Jeremy so close and so bright, so happy and bright and lovely.

“You have to close your eyes first,” the shorter boy responded, attempting to be serious but failing miserably as he dissolved into a fit of breathy giggles. Through his laughter he pointed at Jean’s bemused face and commanded, “Close them!” Jean complied hesitantly, his shoulders in a tense line as Jeremy's laughter faded. He could feel the shorter man moving closer, and then there was sharply-scented breath on his lips, and then there was Jeremy.

Jean had imagined kissing Jeremy before, but it was nothing like this. Jean felt as if fireworks were going off in his mind, as if somebody had lit his shoelace on fire and he’d gone up like a Molotov. Everything he felt was Jeremy, from the hand that rested on the back of his neck to the lips and tongue that moved against his own, delving deeper and deeper sweetly and wantingly.

Jeremy pulled away after what felt like ten years, grinned wildly and madly, and promptly slumped forward against Jean’s chest with a small snore. Jean found himself smiling too, and he chuckled as he rubbed the sleeping boy’s back gently. His lips buzzed with the memory of another’s, and his heart raged within his chest. He decided, in that moment, that perhaps he didn’t dislike the taste of whiskey as much as he thought he would.

[shiningforvixx]

170212  - Monte Cristo Musical Last Day [in Seoul] (Leo)

Wow. I…don’t even know. I guess I need to start at the beginning. No, probably even before that. Today was just a super crazy day ㅇㅅㅇ (This will undoubtedly be a very long post, and definitely not 100% VIXX-related.)

So one of my hobbies is embroidery (this has a point, I promise), and one of my favorite (if not favorite) fanartists is MireyKim. Long story short, I got permission from her to embroider a drawing of hers and to thank her for her permission and for all her lovely pictures I decided to embroider a pouch for her. I went early(ish) to the theater because she was handing out prints of Taekbert drawings. I luckily got there in time and was observant enough to get one. Then I waited for the crowd around her to clear and her friends to settle down(?) before giving her the pouch and a note I had written. It took her a moment, but she figured out I was the embroidery person. Plus she noticed my bag (of her other drawing), and was super sweet and thankful and stuff. I, being apparently a giant awkward human being, basically ran off pretty quickly;;

I was fairly nervous (why??) about giving the pouch to her. (It was funny because she thought the embroidery person was Korean, muahahahaha.) Also, I was feeling…uneasy(?) because of issues with the closing night fanmeet. It seemed like Leo had changed his Instagram post about smiling because people had left things to keep their places and such, but it turned out that he woke up in the morning and was embarrassed, so he took that part out. I was worried for nothing.

The play itself was amazing. I don’t know how they got better every time, but they did. The best part (and where I nearly died) was during Monte Cristo’s party when the different characters were being introduced to the count. Taekbert was introducing his father Mondego who then thanked the count for saving his hamster-like son, as he usually does. However, this time he told Taekbert to show how he can dance really well. After a cheer from the audience, Leo did a little bit of Chained Upㅠㅠ Then he said his dad danced well too, so Mondego did like a half a second of Chained Up!!! Shin Sung Rok is an acting god for not cracking up. I was halfway to the floor. (I also read on Twitter that the composer Frank Wildhorn was sitting behind him with the lyricist Jack Murphy, and they laughed at that part, hehe) Boy, closing night antics thoughㅜㅜ Makes me miss the theater.

Ah, that was in the second act, though, which means it was after intermission, a very strange experience for me. No, intermission itself isn’t strange of course, but I happened to decide to leave the auditorium to stretch my legs. Who do I see in the lobby, but a gathering of white dudes. Two of whom I recognized. Yes. Frank Wildhorn and Ivan Menchell. I always said I would recognize them, but I wasn’t sure until today. Definitely recognize them. Granted, it was a setting that seeing them made sense in, but still. So, me being apparently way more socially awkward than I remembered being, I worried for about a minute and scooted closer and closer to them, finally breaking into their conversation. (The orchestration guy(?) for Monte Cristo was there too I think, but I don’t really know him…sorry;;) Basically I told Frank that the music was great and both of them that I love Mata Hari and am looking forward to Excalibur, Ivan said Mata Hari will be pretty different this time, but better. I’ll take his word. If it’s going to be better…I don’t know what I’ll do when it ends this timeㅠㅠ I also said they should drop a full soundtrack this time, haha. He also remembered where I was from when I tweeted him later ㅇㅅㅇ I was so nervous talking to them though. I didn’t think I would be? Like seriously what is my problem? But it was so…신기해. I don’t have an English equivalent. Unexpected is what is was. And strange. And amazing.

Let’s see…curtain call was also a blast. Leo couldn’t help smiling at the ridiculously loud cheer. Actually all the cheers for everyone were super loud, even throughout the play. Also when Shin Sung Rok introduced him (mentioning him being hamster-like), he just seemed to love him best of all the Alberts. I admit this could be my bias. But it really did seem like everyone loves him…. I didn’t realize how much I had come to like all the actors though (especially the Lee Sanghyeon Mondego…not the one that performed today, haha.) They also called up Jack and Frank… Frank literally…I’m not entirely sure what he did, but it was something like cradle(what are verbs?) Leo’s face as he went by. Did he hug him too or something? I can’t recall exactly, but you could definitely feel the affection. (Plus, Leo was dying of happy embarrassment.) (One more thing, when Shin Sung Rok called the other two Counts on stage, the first was Um Ki Joon, who stood on his tiptoes. Then Kai came out and didn’t want to stand next to him. Shin Sung Rok playfully said that people always are like that around him because of his heightㅠㅠ I know how you feelㅠㅠ Also, Sung Rok almost cried at first. He’s really a precious baby!)

Okay, back to Leo! After the play and curtain call, all the Starlights went to the area Leo told us to meet at for the mini fanmeeting. we ended up all sitting down, and it went surprisingly well. Much better than Mata Hari I’d say. I could even hear him sometimes on account of him having a baby megaphone. He was so smiley and precious. I don’t necessarily remember that much of what he said because that is what fancams are for, but he was so smiley. When he asked if he did well in his role and we all screamed “yes!” he actually sort of shrank back, haha (in a good way, you understand). He also was saying “someone” worked hard (because that’s how Korean works), and we said he worked hard. He said he was talking about himself. OTL That kid. This was also when he told the story about changing the caption on Instagram. He kept shushing people, and it was the cutest thing ever. He was in such a good moodㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ And the manager. He always looks so grumpy, but I know he’s a sweetie. Leo was saying the theater staff didn’t want them to have a fan meeting there, but he and the manager eventually convinced themㅠㅠㅠㅠ Leo also said that there would be things happening this year that would be really surprising! I’m excited for whatever that may be! (Mata Hari? LR? Both? We’ll find out one day~) That’s all I can think of at the moment.

I hope Leo can smile like that foreverㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ

Edit: I just remembered that when Taekbert came out to thank the Count for rescuing him from the kidnappers he waved his arm like he was brandishing a sword and made swishing noises then pointed his hand like a gun and made a bang noise! It was super cute, and I don’t think he had done it beforeㅜㅜ

[theadasave]

kavi’s house

Lunch - 11/21/2017

"Well, let's get that set up first then, yeah?  Gotta make sure we don't tip our hand early and all.  You want any help with anything?"  Kavi flops down on the couch next to Bor, giving him their full attention.(edited)

Barbor - 11/21/2017

"Good point, I was gonna wait till we get there but doing it now would be a lot more safer.~" They reassuringly shook their head, with a blink of an eye Bor was human, close to something he'd remembered what his old self look like. smiley tie, yellow button up shirt, red suspenders, and khakis the tacky happy buddy™ uniform. But now with a cool jacket from space hot-topic!~ "I don't need help with that though, I do this enough that it's second nature~ But if it's alright can you still help me see my way around."(edited)

Lunch - 11/21/2017

"A'course man, just show me how t'help you see, I'll lead you around 'n whatever you need.  Make sure you can tell what's going on, yeah?  Lookin' good too, for a person.  Love the tie." They snicker, poking at the aforementioned tie. "Right, what do you need me to do for this ritual thing, t'tie me to the universe for a while?"

Barbor - 11/21/2017

Bor grunts casually while batting their hand away lightly with a smirk "Of course~ My  hearing and sense of smell still works just as well.~" "I just need a willing subject, their blood a teaspoon full?,  and life force from that universe.~  I'd usually need a thread of your soul to do this but Deumos taught me using blood works just as well~" They pass their hand on the leather grimoire, "The living thing gotta be medium sized, so a human or a tree should do it~ And that's about it, this stuff will last for three days till the part of the universe's life force returns to it's owner.*"

Lunch - 11/21/2017

Kavi pulls a large machete from a sheath on their belt, absently tap-tapping the flat of the blade against their wrist.  "Right, you need me to bleed into a vessel of some sort? Or just have the blood present and available? And are you the life force from the universe, or is this something we need to find?"

Barbor - 11/21/2017

"Definitely present and available, it says here the duration of rune's magic will hear off faster if we put it directly on the vessel in question. If it's on you it'll last longer..." They trailed off while reading some more. They frowned and tilted their head a little "Ehh... I've only been in this universe for a few months, but there's nothing here saying I can't do it still.~  So I'll add some of mine too~." Bor poofs a skull looking cup with different symbols and demonic runes, the demon cut their own wrist with a claw to bleed into the cup before it floats over and under their wrist.

Lunch - 11/21/2017

"Awesome! Here, lemme--" Kavi flips the blade around, neatly slicing the blade across their wrist with a practiced motion.  They hold that wrist over the goblet while the other wipes the machete off on a pantleg and re-sheathes it.  "There we go.  Anything else I need to do?"

Barbor - 11/21/2017

"No, this should be it for now. After I've chanted the words here all you gotta do is either ingest this stuff or let me inscribed on your body somewhere." Bor before clearing his throat to start chanting slightly, and not in his usual voice either. The cup slowly floats over between them as it starts to bubble and churn,  nearly after ten minutes of this a black smoke poofs into the hair out from the skull.  There was a bit of a tugging sensation that could be felt between the two of them, but nothing serious. "Done!~"(edited)

Lunch - 11/21/2017

"Oof- What was that?" A bit of a surprised look at the sensation, but it quickly dissipates once the feeling does as well.  "Right, gotta just drink it.  Then we'll head out.  Oh! Lemme grab some leftovers really quick."  Kavi runs over to the fridge, shoving a bunch of random containers into their bag and zipping it back up. "Boom! Supplies.  Right, here we go!"  Kavi snatches up the goblet and CHUGS IT.

Barbor - 11/21/2017

"Oh fuck yeah! Leftovers!" Bor cheered when the cyborg when over to the fridge to get leftovers for the trip over to gravity falls, they almost for got to warn them that this stuff is gonna taste like five day old ripe grossness. It only clicked in their head to tell them this just as they were chugging the stuff down.  the human didn't look worried for them doing this in the slightest, in fact,  they looked super encouraging and amazed. "Shit Kavi, you good?? hahah!"

Lunch - 11/21/2017

"FUcK. Shit."  Kavi screws up their entire face, making the most miserable expression ever to grace their features.  "That's awful.  Heck.  Uh.  Yeah, lemme just--" They run to the fridge and grab some juice, chugging the entire carton to try and get that taste out of their mouth.. "Ugh.  There we go.  Aight, you ready?"

Barbor - 11/21/2017

Thankfully that taste was easy to wash away, and seeing that screwed up face did give Bor a twinge of regret for not telling them soonerbut the baph still couldn't help feeling amused internally about it. They stood up and swung on their back pack with their book in hand. "I'm ready as I'll ever be~"

Lunch - 11/21/2017

Kavi reaches out, taking Bor's free hand and grinning wildly.  "Let's DO this, man!" They grab their translocation gun and fire it off, blipping the pair over to Gravity Falls.  HERE WE GO, FAM.

Lunch - 12/10/2017

KAVI LEANS OVER INTO BOR AND KNUCKLE-RUBS AT THE TOP OF HIS HEAD AFFECTIONATELY."ACCEPT MY APPRECIATION."

Barbor - 12/10/2017

THE BUGGY DOC LETS OUT A SMOL GROWL  AND SCREECH WHILE GETTING THOSE NOOGIES ON THE HEAD. "NUH ACCEPT MINE FIRST"  THEY REARED THEIR HEAD UP AND TRY THEIR BEST TO BITE KAVI'S HAND.

Lunch - 12/11/2017

"NEVER!"  Kavi is currently still wearing her giant raptor form, so Bor gets a HUGE MOUTHFUL OF METAL.  EVIL CACKLING. "YOU CANNOT ESCAPE."  MORE NOOGIES! ALL THE NOOGIES!

Barbor - 12/11/2017

BLARGH!  METAL!!  THEY STILL GAVE THE METAL ARM A COUPLE OF CHOMPS BEFORE STRUGGLING SOME MORE! "OKAY I ACCEPT IT, YOU GOOF!~  KEHEHAHA, I ACCEPT!"

Lunch - 12/11/2017

"I AM VICTORIOUS!"  Kavi sits up and lets out a victory screech, then lifts Bor up over their head and does a victory lap around the couch, still screeching.

Barbor - 12/11/2017

At this point Bor isn't trying to struggle out of their hands, he's screeching a long with them to a victORIOUS FRIENDSHIP!!! THE ONLY FLAILING THEY DID WAS THEIR ARMS AND LEGS TO EXPRESS HOW HAPPY THEY ARE!

Barbor - 12/13/2017

Bor currently has some dark chocolate, sour cream(gotta thank don for this one), and one pint of icream sitting on the coffee table while they idley eat El diablo jerky. At some point they accidentally rubbed their little unblinking eyes on their head with the same hand they were eating with.  "o-oh no" They scream, they scream loud enough that it could be heard though out the house and out side  "sWEET FUCKIN SATAN MY EYES!!!!!"

Lunch - 12/13/2017

Kavi comes RUNNING IN, a piece of jerky hanging from their mouth as they glance around wild-eyed.  "What? What's happening!? Are we under attack? MAN THE CANNONS."

Lunch - 12/25/2017

Kavi pops in here and drops off a bunch of wrapped boxes right outside Bor's door, grinning like mad as they poof back out.

Barbor - 12/25/2017

Bor doesn't want to admit it, but they tend to use the light coming out of the bottom of the door as a nightlight when ever they sleep, it's nice to tell if someone's in the room if that light is obstructed in some way. Well, when those gifts was left in front of the door, the demon stir from their slumber to see that nightlight of theirs go away. "....?  Hello?" They called out if anyone came into their room... Nope, not a soul inside. Maybe there's something blocking the doo-oh... Boxes? With bows? "Gifts?"They rub their hand on an area where a name would be, oh no it has their name on it!  They dunno whether to do that goat scream out of joy or to purr sadly a whole bunch thinking that they don't deserve these gifts. "KAVI!!" they did both

Lunch - 12/25/2017

Somewhere, Kavi is cackling happily.  The presents? The presents have a lot of stuff in them.  It might take Bor a while to open all of them. First off, there's a big box with a very nice panettone inside, studded with all sorts of candied fruits and drizzled with clear icing.  There's also a neatly wrapped loaf of soft nougat torrone, studded with whole roasted pistachios.  Anise biscotti are tucked in a neat bouquet in another box, dipped in chocolate and almonds. Some boxes are quite warm! It's a good thing he was there to unwrap them right away, really.  A whole feast of the seven fishes, tucked neatly into takeaway boxes;  calamari,  spaghetti with clam sauce, baccala, fried smelt, a whole roast tuna wrapped al cartoccio, octopus salad, and pasta puttanesca.

Sammy_Skeleton_Lover - 12/25/2017

Pasta! Where there was pasta, there was a Vex! He wandered in, having heard about this and fairly certain he'd be welcome. Even if they were the Chaos Zodiac (could they still be called that?), like with Bill, he couldn't deny enjoying their company.

Barbor - 12/25/2017

Bor was putting the putting these yummy dishes on the table and counter for Kavi, themselves, and oh Vex! Gosh they hope he didn't hear them talk to themselves in Italian about all this food.  The demon's mask quirked up a small smile and gave him a wave, "Hello there!~" bor did a small sniffle but tried to play it off as a cough. "Y-You gonna be joinin us today?"

Lunch - 12/25/2017

Kavi bursts in a small while later, grinning like a maniac and carrying an armful of new booze bottles to replace the ones that previous parties had emptied.  There's also some eggnog in a large bottle. "Hey Bor! Oh-- Uh, heya Vex! Didn't expect to see you here."

Sammy_Skeleton_Lover - 12/25/2017

"HELLO!" Vex offered a bright smile. "YES, I THOUGHT I MIGHT!" He also turned to Kavi and offered a little bow. "I THOUGHT I SHOULD MAKE MYSELF ACQUAINTED WITH MORE OF BILL'S FRIENDS."

Barbor - 12/25/2017

Yup it's confirmed, this years Christmas is the best almost bitter sweet.~ Friends and acquaintances coming around to have a awesome meal on a holiday like this is a dream they didn't think would come true. "You've picked a great day to do so!~"  oh shoot are they purring?

Lunch - 12/25/2017

Kavi straight up goes over and hugs Vex, if he allows it.  They may have already sampled a few of these liquor bottles, man. "HELL YEAH! Friends of Bill are always welcome here, dude! Come on, sit down, have a drink.  Bor! How's it going, buddy?" Kavi goes to the kitchen and quickly puts the bottles down so they can wrap Bor up in a much bigger, much tighter hug.

Sammy_Skeleton_Lover - 12/25/2017

Oh, oh he was being hugged now. Okay. Not his cup of tea, but... Oh. That was friendly. "I THOUGHT SO, YES. GYFTMAS IS ALL ABOUT COMING TOGETHER, ISN'T IT? I'D LOVE TO. I THINK I SHOULD AVOID THE ALCOHOL, THOUGH." He politely declined the eggnog, taking himself a seat.

Barbor - 12/25/2017

Though they couldn't physically cry, they still continued to sniffle a whole bunch and it got a bit louder when Kavi gives them a big tight bear hug. "ACK! JEheheeez Kavi!!" The demon gave them a a hug just as big in return with a small headbutt to go with it, "Oh man, I kinda thought this day would go as it always does but-" Bor looked back at the food and let out a squeal "Fuckin Santa man!" Bor lets go of the hug and starts getting some plates and forks to set on the table, "I-I really can't believe it, dude~" gosh the smile on that mask can't get any bigger.

Lunch - 12/25/2017

"Hehe, yeah man, Santa! Who woulda thought, eh?" Kavi smiles softly and ruffles Bor's head, turning around to grab some glasses to set on the table along with the plates.  A quick eggnog mixture is set out, as well as a non-alcoholic holiday punch for Vex.

"Hey, skeledude, you want some water as well? Oooh, shit, I should like-- lemme put some music on."  Kavi runs off to the living room, shoving aside piles of trash until they find the remote.  The television is popped over to one of those 24/7 music channels, this one themed for the holidays.  BOOM.  THEME MUSIC.

Sammy_Skeleton_Lover - 12/25/2017

"WHAT ABOUT SANTA?" Vex asked, a little behind on this topic. "I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO MEET HIM." The non-alcoholic drink was taken with a quick thanks. "NO THANK YOU, THIS WILL DO. HOLIDAY MUSIC? GOOD IDEA."

Barbor - 12/25/2017

Bor nodded in agreement with the music,"He left this stuff for me in front of my door, I suppose if he'd was here so I can thank him and apologize." they shrugs while putting a scoop of pasta puttanesca and octopus salad on to their plate, it was probably for the best or else he'd give this demon a firm talking to. "Did the red guy get you two anything this year?"

Lunch - 12/25/2017

"Nahhh.  I'm literally one of the worst people around, dude, you know that.  I haven't recieved anything from that fat fuck in eons." Kavi chuckled good-naturedly, loading their plate up with some fried smelts, calamari, and roast tuna. "And apparently you just missed him, Vex.  He's the one that brought all the food, yeah?"

Sammy_Skeleton_Lover - 12/25/2017

"WOW! HE WAS REALLY JUST HERE A LITTLE WHILE AGO? THAT'S SO COOL!" He took for himself some pasta puttanesca, spaghetti with clam sauce, and some of the pennettone. Pasta dishes!! "I ALWAYS GET SOMETHING, BUT IT'D BE GREAT IF I COULD MEET HIM JUST ONCE."

Barbor - 12/25/2017

"Heck yeah it's cool! I'd actually thought you'd gets some though, there should be a list for awesome people, honestly." they stuff their mask/beak with some of the pasta with a huff, but not in a overly irritated way. At leas they can share their present with some friends~ "Oh, why don't you set up some cameras next time to catch him in the act?"

Lunch - 12/25/2017

"Oh man, he's kinda like- better at this than I am?  I'm a little embarrassed to say it, really.  I've got cameras everywhere, but all they caught was a flash of red and white and then some static with a holiday jingle.  I'm pretty sure he's got some kind of hacker elf on his team or something." Kavi isn't gonna ruin this for their friends, no sir.  They are, however, going to stuff a handful of fried smelt into their mouth.  CHOMP.

Sammy_Skeleton_Lover - 12/25/2017

"OF COURSE I GOT SOMETHING!" He beamed. "I GOT A NEW COLOR CUBE FROM SANTA. HE KNEW I WANTED A NEW CHALLENGE!" He put a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "HMM... CAMERAS, YOU SAY? AN EXCELLENT IDEA! I'LL TRY THAT NEXT YEAR."

Barbor - 12/26/2017

The demon tilted their head a bit to the left and then to the right all the while they have a fork in their mouth. "Mm, What's a Color Cube? Is it like one  of those cool rubix cube puzzles,  or something entirely different?"

Hacking elves?... Got dang, santa's crafty. Maybe using some camo while he roams the home might work.

Lunch - 12/26/2017

"Man, you're smarter than I am.  I can never solve those things.  I always lose patience a few turns in, yeah?"

NULL - 12/26/2017

An absolutely ridiculous zoot suit with 50's-60's mobster fashion influences, but in terrible, bowling alley carpet inspired, utterly eye bleeding colors walks in as though it's being worn by an invisible person, then crumbles into a lifeless heap in front of Bor. It's definitely their size.(edited)

Sammy_Skeleton_Lover - 12/26/2017

"YES, RUBIKS CUBES ARE ONE BRAND OF COLOR CUBES." He nodded. "BUT THERE ARE MANY OTHERS! THEY'RE ALL FASCINATING, I HAVE OVER A DOZEN NOW." He held out his hand, then his newest cube appeared. "IT'S AN OCTAGONAL CYLINDER!"

http://lodelnic.free.fr/images/collection/octagon.jpg

Lunch - 12/26/2017

Kavi fucking breaks down laughing, man.  They don't even care. A bowling alley zoot suit just walked right into their dining room.

Barbor - 12/26/2017

Bor was almost distracted by the coolio color cube that they almost missed the zoot suit walking in. But it's hard for him to miss the headless figure  just walk up and crumble in front of them. The demon stood up and picked up the jacket, gosh it really was their size~ They love it!~ they puts it on and completely unaware of the horrible design this thing is sporting. "Guys, holy fucking shit!!~ Santa strikes again!  How do I look?" They turned around to show Vex and Kavi their back a bit.

Lunch - 12/26/2017

WOLF WHISTLES.

Sammy_Skeleton_Lover - 12/26/2017

Vex let his color cube disappear, gaping in utter shock. "WAIT, WHAT, THAT WAS SANTA?? WAIT, DID HE JUST- WHOA! IS HE STILL HERE??" Cue the very tol skeleton hurrying back to the door to look around and up, trying to see the red, big-bellied man himself. Where oh where could he be??

NULL - 12/26/2017

Oh Jesus Christ don't give him ideas, Vex. A gold-plated handgun in a holster manifests on Kavi's hip. It feels abnormal, but the gift giver, apparently, felt it'd be more fun to let them figure out what exactly it does and what it's for on their own.

Lunch - 12/26/2017

Kavi just about jumps out of their chair in surprise, glancing down at their waist and YELLIN.  "GUYS.  GUYS LOOK!" They pull the gun out and WAVE IT IN THE AIR. GOOD IDEA. YEP.

Sammy_Skeleton_Lover - 12/26/2017

Vex came back to the doorway to stare at the gun. "HOLY SHIT. IS SANTA A SKELETON?? HOW IS HE JUST... MAKING THINGS APPEAR??"

Lunch - 12/26/2017

"MAGIC!"  More gun-waving.  Good thing the safety's on...right?

Barbor - 12/26/2017

"HE GAVE YOU A GUN!~ MY MAN!!"  Bor at this point is making a bunch of chitterlings sounds inconspicuously from the excitement! what's even going on, this is great!

Lunch - 12/26/2017

Kavi grins over at Bor, though there's an amused look tossed towards the dorito they'd hung up on the wall.  "Dude, maybe Santa's finally turned awesome this year.  I sure wish I could thank him.  I hope he's having a good time, wherever he is."

Sammy_Skeleton_Lover - 12/26/2017

"ME TOO!" Bounce. "IT'S NEVER BEEN LIKE THIS BEFORE!"

Barbor - 12/26/2017

The noises they're making quiet down for a moment while they whispered "What if he's here right now watching us? Should we say thanks now??"

NULL - 12/26/2017

Another gold-plated item, this time a violin, tucks itself under Vex's arm. Again, it feels abnormal, but no explaination is offered.

Sammy_Skeleton_Lover - 12/26/2017

Vex was thinking the same thing, until the violin popped into existence. He gasped aloud, holding it up with both hands. "OH MY STARS!! YOU GUYS!! LOOK! WOW!! THANK YOU SANTA!!!"

Barbor - 12/26/2017

"Oh dear satan ,look at that violin!!~" Bor lets out such a gasp, a big one, gosh look at that beauty! "GRAZIE SANTA!~" the demon called out while doing a small hop(edited)

Lunch - 12/26/2017

"Dear satan is right! Dude, you could challenge the devil to a fiddle-off with that thing!"

Sammy_Skeleton_Lover - 12/26/2017

"I COULD! I REALLY COULD, HOLY SHIT IT'S SO PRETTY!!!" He immediately put the bow to the strings to test it with a rousing fiddle song.

Barbor - 12/26/2017

The roach demon's antennae perked up listening to that fiddle song, gosh dang was it catchy and smooth, they even let out a few hums while he played

Lunch - 12/26/2017

Kavi just flat out starts dancing to it.  No shame.  They should probably have shame, though, they're about as good at dancing as a white chick that's just downed her fourth long island iced tea.

NULL - 01/01/2018

Kavi gets a Bill kiss. He's in a lot of pieces right now.

Lunch - 01/01/2018

Kavi WHOOPS/

NULL - 01/01/2018

He has that effect.

Lunch - 01/01/2018

There's a smooch back for the triangle, as well as a quick hug.  "Happy New Year, dude.  Thanks for starting it off on a good note."

Barbor - 01/01/2018

Bor poofs out of Steves house and into Kavi's with a tackle hug!! "HAPPY NEW YEAR, DUDE!!!!~" the demon gives them lots of head nuzzles!

Lunch - 01/01/2018

Kavi breaks into loud, gut-busting, gleeful laughter as they hug both beings and nuzzle Bor in return. "HAPPY NEW YEAR! HELL YEAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Barbor - 01/01/2018

The demon also gave Bill a head nuzzle with a smooching sound to boot!~ "Happy new year, man!!~ Wish you guys many more too!" gives both of them more snugs!

Lunch - 03/05/2018

---- LOUD YELLING.  WHOOOOOOOO.YEAH. FUCK YEAH.  ROBO LEGS.WOOOOOOOOOO.

NULL - 03/05/2018

Bill wasn't initially sure why they were yelling. He was just down to party no matter what, joining in with a sharp "WOOOOO!" the moment he manifested to their side.

Lunch - 03/05/2018

!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. RUN IN CIRCLES AROUND BILL.

NULL - 03/05/2018

Spins in circles to keep an eye on them. Also screaming. It's like some excitable dogs or something.

Lunch - 03/05/2018

"ROBO LEGS, FUCK YEAAAAAH!" Kavi does a big ole LEAP over Bill, showing off.

NULL - 03/05/2018

Applauds! "Hey, we should see how big I can get before you can't vault over me anymore! Billympics!"

Lunch - 03/05/2018

"Fuck yeah!  Especially with a running jump, man!" They bounce on the legs with a hiss of pneumatics, still missing one eye as they grin up at Bill.  They should PROBABLY be resting if the bloody bandages on their chest are any indication, but Kavi doesn't seem to care a wit. As usual. "Could see how far we could throw you too! Like those uhhh.  Shitput folks."

NULL - 03/05/2018

"SHITPUT!" He lifts his arms into the air with a wide and wild look in his eye. "Shitput me, Kavi! Maybe not right now. I'd probably get stuck in a wall or something. We've gotta plan this though! It sounds like a great time and everything is so BORING since I stopped trying to kill everyone. I'm really rethinking that whole situation, by the way. I don't feel like anybody actually benefitted from it at all. What do you think? Is everyone bored?"

Lunch - 03/05/2018

"I'M SO FUCKING BORED, LET'S DO IT.   I'LL SHITPUT YOU RIGHT OUTTA THE ATMOSPHERE." Giant grin as they flex both arms, a matching glint in their own eye.  They're all riled up, man.

"Everyone except the extra goody goody two-shoes, man.  They like this peace bullshit.  But nothing's happening! Last night was the best time I've had in months.  I turned a kid into ash Bill! It was GREAT!"

NULL - 03/05/2018

"I saw that! I see EVERYTHING!" He offers them a high five. "REALLY though, I think even the "good guys" are probably kind of bored without something going down. Last night was good. I'm glad I finally got Black Hat's attention. If nothing else I know he'll keep encouraging bad behavior with his fat-" "STACKS OF CASH!"

Lunch - 03/05/2018

Oh fuck yeah they'll high-five him, slapping his hand with a bunch of pent-up energy.

"IT WAS GREAT.  I'm glad the Black Hat whoever he is, whatever he is, is around to stir up some SHIT.  Pay us to blow shit up? Oh FUCK yeah.  I LOVE IT." They throw their arms wide. "BIG FAT HONKING CASH STACKS."

NULL - 03/05/2018

"Yeah! I agreed not to stir up too much chaos at a time myself, but NOBODY SAID ANYTHING ABOUT ENCOURAGING SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT FOR ME. Hooo! I love loopholes. I'm like the master of loopholes, you know. It's from all that pact magic. Years, decades, millennia of DEALS." He shoots a laser through the roof, just because. The damage repairs itself immediately after. "I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with that train. It's more excitement than this town's seen since the last time I brought a toilet to life and gave it teeth."(edited)

Lunch - 03/05/2018

"Which was fucking hilarious." "AND YEAH.  FUCK YEAH.  MASTER OF LOOPHOLES.  DEVIOUS PLAN ANGLE EXTRAORDINAIRE."  CLAP CLAP CLAP.  WHOOO.  CHEERING HIM ON. Lasers are very exciting, okay?

NULL - 03/05/2018

"This guy Trevor's really got my vote. I think I'll make him a demigod someday if he doesn't accomplish that himself because I genuinely think he might. One look at that handsome devil and I knew he was just BRIMMING with the kind of chaos this place needs. Oh yeah! Between Black Gay Hat on Self Worship Island over there and the boys he's paying, INCLUDING YOU, YOU BRILLIANT DISASTER YOU, we should be able to do... SOMETHING, about this pissbaby quiet time."(edited)

Barbor - 04/25/2018

------- BOR'S DOING THAT LAUGH TRACK LAUGH AGAIN, OH NO HIS SIDES!

Lunch - 04/25/2018

CACKLING FROM KAVI'S ROOM.

Barbor - 04/25/2018

The demon whimpers while cleaning up the mess they made, they just used their telekinesis to lift the stains and drink it up back again. But their giggle fits is still there, threatening to come back "SNRK"

Barbor - 04/26/2018

"KAVI i'M GONNA COME OVER THERE AND HUG YOU!!"

Lunch - 04/26/2018

"TOO LATE, I CAUGHT STUPID BITCH DISEASE."

Barbor - 04/26/2018

VERY LOUD STOMPING COMING AND small trilling cuz noo, they don't want their friend to feel like that... BURST OPENS THE DOOR "DON'T WORRY, I HAVE THE CURE!" LE GLOMP!

Lunch - 04/26/2018

Kavi's laid flat out on their bed, Patrick Starfish style, with their phone flat on their face.  They ain't even got no legs on, Lt. Dan. "HOLY SHI--" MISSION GLOMP: SUCCESS!

Barbor - 04/29/2018

bam bam bam bam BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM! SKREEEE- ...  CRASH! IT’S OKAY, THEY’RE FINE THEY SLID UP A BIT BUT THEY’RE FINE!  Bor just scrambles up and start to sniffle snuffle about  in the cabinets. Once they found where the stash is hidden at the baph just kinda... slips in the cabinet like this:(edited)

Barbor - 04/30/2018

Bor finally recovered from ingesting 2 pounds of catnip, at first they thought it was Saturday night but... No it's monday??? They poke their head out of ripped up pillows and couch cushions, oooh man, they gotta to fix this place up... "Maybe... Maybe I should hold off on this stuff for a bit" The demon spent the better half of their morning fixing up the place and cleaning up any mess they've made, even fixing the Billrito frame too~  But not before adding a Kavrito and a Borito along with it.~

Lunch - 05/08/2018

Somewhere in the kitchen, Kavi is working away at a secret. Eventually they turn around and reveal...a giant honeycomb and a glass of milk.  Both are left out for Bor with a big heart on a piece of paper.

Barbor - 05/08/2018

The baph walks in the kitchen to get a koolaid pop in the freezer, that's until something caught their nose? Antennae? Whatever it is they're practically screeching happily at this awesome gift, who left this here?? it kinda smells like Kavi did! THE SCREECHING INTENSIFIES!~ Oh no, the paper feels like they even drew a heart on it.~ Bor starts eating their snack grossly while pausing ever now and then to look for bestie, THEY'RE STICKY AND THEY'RE GONNA GIVE THEM A HUG!

Lunch - 05/08/2018

OH FUCK. THEY'RE RUNNING, PLEASE NO STICKY.

[aimeraiwrites]

the one where you and your soulmate have matching marks on your bodies with Dante and Mat

Mat’s lucky his right hand is the one that he used to grab Dante, all those years ago. Most people ask him if he shook hands with his soulmate, and he can say that it was something like that, while smiling convincingly enough at them. The truth is, he’s not even sure Dante remembers that Mat had grabbed Dante that first time to keep Dante from tripping and falling, pulling him closer. It feels like a fitting way to start their story.

Mat feels like he’s going to spend the rest of his life trying to pull Dante closer. After all, it’s what their marks symbolise, and he knows he cares way too much about soulmarks, but he wishes it didn’t constantly feel like Dante was slipping through Mat’s fingers. They could’ve both gone NCAA, but Mat chose the Thunderbirds. They could’ve both gone to the Thunderbirds, but Dante picked the NCAA. Mat got drafted to the Islanders, and Dante got drafted to a team halfway across the country, and that was out of their control. But then Mat finally makes his way up to the big leagues, and Dante chooses to finish school. He doesn’t even know how he’s kept Dante all these years, wonders if they’d be friends still if not for the soulmarks, and then feels ungrateful for thinking about it like that. Dante does care. He has to, right?

That’s Mat being ungrateful again, because he knows Dante cares, but the way Dante cares doesn’t make sense to Mat at all. Mat doesn’t know what he means to Dante. Mat doesn’t know, and he’s too afraid to ask, and it’s killing him a little. A lot. It’s killing him a lot, and the only reason he’s thinking about it is because he’s been drinking some top-shelf stuff. It’s an anniversary of sorts, almost, and he’s alone in the empty apartment he bought himself. Dante is still in Boston, but Mat’s already back in BC. He won’t call Dante, though, because Dante has exams and friends and a life back in Boston that Mat isn’t part of, and because if he calls Dante, he might tell him about all of this and then Dante will really be disappointed in him, because Mat is being clingy and irrational, and he knows it, but Dante is his soulmate.

He opens his phone anyway, thinks of sending a text to Dante, just wondering what he’s up to, but Dante texts him like he knew Mat was thinking of him. Mat goes to open the text, but he ends up pressing dial and doesn’t realise till the call goes through. It’s too late to hang up, because Dante picks up immediately.

“Hi Mat,” Dante says, and he sounds so happy that Mat is involuntarily smiling at his half-full glass.

“Hey Dante,” Mat says, and he sounds way more wasted than he thought he was. He thought he was tipsy but he’s edging towards full drunk, his true emotions obvious in his voice the way they never are sober.

“Happy anniversary,” Dante says. “Or like, not for you yet but it’s past midnight here and I don’t know if I can stay up till 3am.”

“Anniversary?” Mat says, through lips gone numb.

Dante sounds a little sheepish. “It is, right? Ten years, to the day.”

“I didn’t know you kept track,” Mat says and now he feels kinda shitty, drinking alone and already drunk and it’s not even the day while Dante apparently stayed up just to wish him.

“Mat,” Dante says, and he sounds funny in a way Mat can’t describe but knows is less smiley. “Of course I would. It’s ten years of both of us.”

“There’s an us?” Mat asks, before he can self-edit. He’s drunk but even he knows that it’s a misstep, and so fucking untrue.

Dante sounds a lot less smiley now, but he doesn’t sound mad. Mat thinks he would be furious, if Dante ever said something like that to him, but they’re not the same at all for soulmate things, so he can’t say he’s surprised. “Mat, can I FaceTime you?”

“Sure,” Mat says, and the request pops up immediately.

When he answers it, Dante shows up on the screen, somewhere surprisingly well lit, his hair looking like he’s been running his fingers through it, more unruly than usual. He looks stressed and visibly exhausted, and Mat wants nothing more than to crawl into bed with him, all of a sudden, just to make sure he’s getting enough sleep. Or barring that, he wants to at least get on a goddamn plane and see him. He doesn’t know what it would do, except that he wants to, even though he’ll be more of a distraction than not.

Dante musters up a smile seeing Mat, but it fades quickly. “Mat, you know there’s an us, right?” he says, and he sounds so serious and so believing, and Mat doesn’t understand. It didn’t feel like Dante cared as much, but then he wouldn’t have answered the call. Wouldn’t have remembered that it’s been ten years since they gave each other matching red handprints. Wouldn’t be affirming that there’s an us to them.

“I didn’t mean it the way it came out,” Mat says, because if he can take it back they don’t have to talk about this on their tenth anniversary, because he can’t see it ending any way but unhappily.

Dante sucks on his lower lip and runs his free hand through his hair, messing it up further, showing off the hand print encircling his left wrist like a manacle. “How did you mean it, Mat?”

Dante isn’t giving him an easy out here. Mat fumbles with the words, but comes up empty, a long silence where he’s the sole focus of Dante’s attention. He reaches for the glass instead and takes a sip to brace himself, but Dante catches on immediately

“Are you drunk?” Dante asks. He doesn’t sound accusing, just thoughtful and a little worried.

Mat shakes his head. “Not really.”

“Mat, are you okay? It’s barely nine there.”

Mat shrugs. He doesn’t know what answer Dante wants and Dante doesn’t seem to be gunning for a fight, but he doesn’t know. “I just miss you,” he says plaintively. “I don’t know if I’m allowed.”

Dante’s face looks visibly devastated. This is worse than if Mat had shot him, the look on his face, hurt and disbelief warring with each other. “Mat. Mat, what do you think you are to me?”

“Your soulmate?” Mat answers, because that is fairly obvious. “What else is there?”

Dante closes his eyes and swallows, lashes casting shadows under his eyes. “Mat,” he says, his voice measured and tight. A ‘we’re down by two but we have a period left to play and we can do this’ voice. “I know I’m not great at words, but you’re…”

He shakes his head and looks back at Mat, frustrated. “You’re everything to me. I thought you knew.”

“Because we’re soulmates,” Mat finishes.

“Because you’re you,” Dante corrects. “We have marks and they match. Cool. Great. But I’d rather not have the marks and have you. A mark’s just a mark, but you’re you. And I–”

He cuts himself off again, and smiles a little wryly. “I don’t even know if I’m making sense, but you know I love you. You’re the best part of my summers and it’s great that we’re soulmates, but there would be an us anyway. Or–I’d want there to be an us.”

“Me too,” Mat says, because Dante looks nervous, and he shouldn’t when he’s said all these things that Mat’s been waiting to hear for forever and a day, from the first time they touched. Mat honestly feels a little stupid, now, for thinking that Dante doesn’t care, because he obviously cares. He cares so much. It’s written all over his face and the way he said it like it hurt that Mat didn’t already know.

Dante sighs like he’s relieved, slumping back a little. “You do know I love you, right?”

“Yeah,” Mat says. Doesn’t add the ‘I know now’ because it’ll only hurt both of them. He thought, even before, but it’s something different to know, because Dante has said it, even if Mat doesn’t know how he means it. Love can mean anything; love can be everything, and Dante doesn’t seem to treat him any different. Mat buys into grand romances. Dante doesn’t. Mat doesn’t know what a love like that would look like on Dante, because the love he gives Mat is like a security blanket. He doesn’t really know if Dante does romance, just that he doesn’t do grand romance. He wants to know, though. Not all soulmates are romantic, but he wants to know, because Dante’s love still isn’t something Mat can touch and understand.

It’s like Dante knows what Mat is thinking. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

Mat freezes, and Dante makes a quiet sound that Mat thinks is going to be pressed into his memory forever.

“What do I have to do to prove it to you?” Dante asks, and he sounds so fucking hopeless that it’s all the proof that Mat really needs, or ever will need. Maybe it’s not Mat’s kind of love, but even if it isn’t, Mat is taking it far too lightly.

“You don’t,” Mat says. “I’m just being me.”

Dante just looks at him with a capital-L Look, till Mat feels defensive about it. “What?”

“Sometimes, you’re such an idiot,” Dante tells him. “Let me rephrase: I don’t have to prove it to you, but I want to, because I hate that you ever doubted it at all.”

He’s blushing bright red and honestly, this might be the most feelings sharing that they’ve done about each other since the time they were screaming at each other about where Dante was going to go play. That time didn’t involve even an ounce of the vulnerability Mat’s feeling now, and he doesn’t know if Dante’s ever told him so much about the bond and them and how he feels. Dante is an open book except for when it comes to these kinds of things; he keeps his love close.

“I don’t need it now,” Mat says, and hopes Dante believes him.

He doesn’t. His jaw does a thing, and Dante can be as headstrong as Mat. More, even. Mat hasn’t seen this face in years, and Mat is tired and drunk and–

“Dante,” he says, softly, and Dante’s face modulates, still stubborn, but somehow not as fierce. This is a Dante who will yield, who Mat can coax down. “You don’t talk, you know.”

Dante opens his mouth but Mat cuts him off before he can even start. “I mean, you don’t talk about soulmate things, or things that matter, and I need that.”

Dante sits there, frowning at Mat. “I didn’t know.”

“I mean, I never told you,” Mat says. He didn’t want to appear too needy, and it’s not like Dante isn’t wonderful, but it makes being apart so hard, because Dante is inscrutable over text. “I thought it would be too much.”

“So, should I tell you I love you every day?” Dante asks, all focus.

If Mat told him yes, right now, he’d do it without question and mean it every time, because Dante is like that. But Mat’s heart wouldn’t be able to take hearing it every day, and it’s already struggling, going dangerously fast. Has been for most of this conversation, partly fear, mostly elation.

Mat licks his lips. “Don’t do that.”

“So what should I do?” Dante asks.

“Just talk more,” Mat says.

“Like what? Like, do you want to hear that I think about you every time I see my wrist?” Dante asks, and his face is so red but he’s still talking. “Or that sometimes I miss you so much it hurts? Because I’d do anything to have you here right now.”

Mat is not sure he’s still breathing, pulse thundering in his ears. “I could fly out.”

He’d been thinking of it as a ridiculous idea earlier but the way Dante lights up, despite the bags under his eyes. Yeah, it’s not ridiculous at all.

“Would you?”

“I thought about it earlier,” Mat admits, and Dante’s almost glowing, wanting bright enough that the mere suggestion has him looking like he’s on a caffeine rush. How could Mat have thought it was a stupid idea at all? “You sure you want me around even with finals?”

Dante shrugs off finals like they’re nothing. “I always want you around, finals can deal.”

“Then I’ll come,” Mat says, like it’s that easy, but it is. “We can come back home together.”

Dante’s smiling at him like–Mat doesn’t know what to call that look, just that it warms him up, makes his face feel hot enough that he’s sure Dante will notice. “I’d like that.”

It’s weird, Mat thinks distantly, that it wasn’t a ‘that’d be sick, bro.’ Not a bad weird, and not worth focusing on when he has tickets to book and bags to pack, but still weird.

Dante yawns in the middle of Mat trying to remember what he needs to pack, and Mat blinks and looks at the time. “Shit, you should be asleep right now.”

“’S fine,” Dante says, around another yawn that practically cracks his jaw. “Needed to talk to you.”

“More than you needed to sleep?” Mat asks dryly, back on familiar ground.

Dante wrinkles his nose. “It’s our anniversary, and I wanted.”

Mat doesn’t know what to say to that, just smiles, probably like an idiot. “I’ll be out on the earliest flight I can get.”

“More than good enough,” Dante says, before beaming. “We’ll get to spend our anniversary together.”

“What, are you planning something nice?” Mat asks, more because he can ask than because he’s expecting it, The thought of ten years of soulmates with a soulmate who loves him is more than good enough, better than any kind of night out.

Dante shrugs. “I’d rather stay in and spend time with you. I miss the way your shampoo makes my sheets smell.”

Mat makes a mental note to pack his shampoo, because what else can he do, but still chirps, because old habits die hard, and that way he doesn’t have to think about how closely Dante’s thoughts echoed his. “Soft. So fucking soft.”

“I’m not going to be sorry about being soft about you,” Dante says, and he’s yawning again, and Mat should really have sent him to bed minutes ago, but he’s going to hoard every minute of Dante he can get, never mind that he’s going to see him tomorrow. “Hey, I’m gonna go back to my room, but if I put in my earphones and hide under the covers I can talk to you till I fall asleep? Just make sure you text me your flight details.” 

Dante falls asleep maybe ten minutes after he ends up in his bed, and Mat’s pretty sure he just made it through their conversation through sheer stubbornness. He’s smiling down at his phone like an idiot, anyway, but there’s no one to see him in his apartment, still kinda tipsy, but some of that has to be the joy, the invincibility that comes with knowing that Dante loves him. Maybe not Mat’s kind of love, but love enough that Mat can fly to the other side of the country just because Dante wants him there.