#the ride ahead

[greensparty]

2024 IFFBoston Wrap-Up

From May 1 to 8, I got to attend my favorite film festival in Boston, in New England and possibly the world, the Independent Film Festival Boston (read my previous coverage here). I have a special place for this festival: in 2014 my documentary Life on the V: The Story of V66 had its World Premiere at the festival, and in 2015 I was on the Documentary Jury. This was one of the best line-ups in a while. There was a common theme from a number of the films I saw (both narrative and documentary) about disabilities, conditions and anxieties. It was nice to see the amount of inclusion and accessibility represented in this year's fest. Here is my lightning-round of this year’s fest:

Wed. May 1:

Sadly I missed the opening night, just stopped by to pick up my badge :(

Thurs. May 2:

I went to the Brattle to see one of the most highly-anticipated movies of this year, I Saw the TV Glow about two teens who bond over their fandom of a mysterious TV show. I caught director Jane Schoenbrun’s last film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair when it was was at the 2021 IFFBoston and while I had a mixed response to the film, I was excited about this new one. Taking place over the course of 27 years, we see young teen Owen in 1996 who be-friends Maddy, a few years older as he takes an interest in the TV show The Pink Opaque, a 90s WB-type series (a serious Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed reference). As time goes on, Maddy leaves VHS tapes of the show for Owen since his parents won't let him stay up for it. A few years later, the show gets canceled and Maddy leaves town. The lines between fiction and reality begin to blur after that. I choose to not give away much more to avoid spoilers. I've thought about this film every day since I saw it and all I can say is OMG - Wow, this movie rocks! Much has been made about how this movie is an allegory for Schoenbrun's own experience of transitioning, but even without that backstory, it is truly the work of an artist who is using film to comment on our relationship with pop culture. There have definitely been times for me as a teen (and since) when I related more to fictional characters than IRL people around me, which is what's being presented with Owen. Schoenbrun is showing how pop culture can be something that brings people together as they sit silently watching a show, while connecting with that show. Whether the show was actually good is another story altogether, but the point is it spoke to you at a time when you needed it. There are definitely parts when this is bowing at the altar of David Cronenberg or Donnie Darko, but when this works, it's on the level of Twin Peaks for a depiction of suburbia not being what it seems. It's also one of the rare times when you see a character return to pop culture that they loved when they were young and when they are older they have a different view of it. As someone who has addressed pop culture and nostalgia in all of my work, it's no surprise that I was moved by this, but it truly is a film that lives up to the hype. Side note: Schoenbrun is receiving the Coolidge Breakthrough Artist Award from Coolidge Corner Theatre tonight!

Fri. May 3:

I caught up with some filmmaker friends and press friends at the after-party. Good times!

Sat. May 4:

I caught the documentary The Road to Ruane about Billy Ruane. Let me back up: After my friend Michael Gill passed away in 2022, my hope was that his long in the works documentary about Ruane, the eccentric promoter of legendary Boston rock club The Middle East (actually Cambridge, but a big part of the Boston music scene), would somehow get completed and released. I met up with Gill a few times before he moved around 2017 as I had heard about his doc and there was a lot of overlap with his doc and my doc Life on the V: The Story of V66 in terms of interviewees and subject matter (both of us filmed interviews with Ben Deily of The Lemonheads, Dana Colley of Morphine and Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo and there's loads of overlap with other bands too). I am thrilled to see that co-director Scott Evans completed the doc and it is finally premiered. The fact that the doc features loads of Middle East archival footage and interviews with a who's who of Boston rock got my attention.

Ruane was a Harvard-educated trust fund child (Warren Buffet was his Godfather) and when he stayed in Boston he took to the local music scene and began booking and promoting bands at The Middle East. But beyond the "this band got their start and played there before they were famous" stories (of which there are many) it's really a story of someone who couldn't hide from his family trauma compounded with his bipolar disorder. It serves as a cautionary tale of money can't buy happiness. But beyond just being a tribute to Ruane, it is also a tribute to Gill and his own connection to The Middle East as an employee and with his band The Damn Personals, covered here too. This is a music doc for Boston music geeks!

Afterwards I went upstairs to the Crystal Ballroom for the karaoke party and jury awards!

Sun. May 5:

In the afternoon I caught Tallywacker, which had already won a jury award before the screening. It's a comedy-drama about a two-person rock band Tallywacker. Guitarist-singer Aleister is disabled and drummer Emmett has been his friend and bandmate for 15 years. When Aleister gets a chance to tour with a major rock star he brings Emmett along to help out, but not perform with the band. This, of course, tests the friendship and the band. I out and out loved this movie! It got into the trope of movies about bands, but the trick was that the funny parts are really funny and the dramatic parts were really emotional and the indie rock soundtrack was really good too. There were a lot of films at this year's festival about disabilities and one of the common themes was the need for equality. While that theme is present in this film, it actually brought up an interesting question, which Emmett asks Aleister - are audiences liking and watching you for the right reasons or are you being exploited? It's an entertaining movie with some strong themes and ideas to it!

My friends director Dan Habib and editor James Rutenbeck were at the 2018 IFFBoston with the great doc Intelligent Lives. Now they are back with a new doc The Ride Ahead co-directed by Dan’s son Samuel about his own personal journey to becoming an adult. Samuel, a disabled young person, tells his story of figuring out what's next and making a film about it by talking with other disabled activists and entertainers. Dan is a very gifted filmmaker and it's truly beautiful to see he and his son Samuel open up themselves to share their story with the world. Talent runs in their family!

Mon. May 6:

My friend Mark Phinney’s film Fat was at 2014 IFFBoston when I was there with Life on the V: The Story of V66. We’ve remained good friends since then and this year he premiered his new feature Fear of Flying about a man struggling with his anxieties while trying to maintain his relationships. It is impossible for me to be objective about this film as Mark is a friend of mine and I actually read an early draft of the screenplay and gave him my notes. But I will say this, this is a good example of what a small character-driven indie film can do on a low budget and it has a lot to say about people who live with anxiety and the personal toll it can take and inhibit progress, relationships and career. The cast is solid and Mark made something really personal. Way to go Mark!

Vanyaland's Michael Christopher, director Mark Phinney and the cast/crew of Fear of Flying

Tues. May 7:

The fest moved over to the Coolidge Corner Theatre (one of their new cinemas I might add). In My Own Normal, director Alexandre Freeman turns the camera on himself: living with cerebral palsy since age two he is now an adult about to become a new father and how his parents react to this. My friend Ariana Garfinkel (she’s an IFFBoston alum as well) is a consulting producer on the film. The film gets deep into parenthood and what it is for someone with disabilities to become a parent, a husband and a filmmaker. Truly moving!

Wed. May 8:

The Closing Night film at Coolidge was the comedy Thelma starring Oscar-nominee June Squibb as an elderly woman who is scammed by a caller claiming to be her grandson and goes on a city-wide quest to get back what’s hers. Of all the films I saw at IFFBoston this year, this was easily the lightest and dare I say, most commercial. But there was a charm to it and it's constructed with a lot of the tropes of action movies but adapting them to an elderly cast. I was especially excited to see Richard Roundtree (who passed away last October) in one of his final roles as Thelma's friend who helps her out with his scooter and is also the voice of reason. The cast definitely elevated what could have been a sitcom-ish premise. Watch for it when it opens in June. Afterwards I swung by the party in one of the new spaces at the Coolidge.

me at 2024 IFFBoston

Congrats to all my pals who had films this year and to the IFFBoston team for swinging it out of the park once again!

For info (and ways to support) IFFBoston

[niidsch]

NANA DVD covers

[tategaminu]

Happy valentines to these two losers (the remake)

Let's hope we get some more snuggles! Comparative under the cut⬇️

[tinalbion]

Hi! Can I please request a smut fic with Rusty Nail? When I saw that you wrote for him, I was so excited because he is so underrated!

Hey there! I've been thinking about this for so long and I am finally here with good news, I am gracing you with more Rusty smut! Something the world desperately needs, I know I do! Thank you for being patient, I know it was a hell of a wait, but I am back as much as I can be!

Rusty is very underrated and he deserves so much more love than what he gets. So I hope this will suffice for the time being! 💙✨

"I Don't Want To Miss You Like I Do" ||

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Rusty Nail x fem!Reader

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄! Minors, DO NOT interact! Masturbation, vaginal fingering, cowgirl, oral, penetration, creampie

𝐋𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡: 4k

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: You had been feeling extra lonely since Rusty had been out doing his job to support the both of you, so with your mind occupied, you figured you'd have some personal one-on-one time. Too bad you didn't know you weren't alone.

© 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐛𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞, 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲, 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫!

Whenever Rusty was gone for weeks at a time, that part didn't bother you in the slightest, it paid the bills and was a necessary trade-off for affording all he could provide for you. You didn’t even think he would give up what he loved doing, and you’d never want him to, but what you hated the most was the loneliness.

You'd grown accustomed to having him around, so when that first time back on the job came around, you were slightly nervous, but living in his larger home was nice and much more peaceful than staying in your city apartment. It gave you things to do with a place so large, new things to discover about Rusty that he had displayed around the walls, but for such a larger place compared to your apartment, it was painfully quiet after a while of living there. Rusty wanted you to feel at home here since you decided to stay with him, so he tried his best to do what he could to bring more of you out within the confines of the walls. He offered to set up a room just for you if you wanted it, sort of like an office or a crafting area, and he'd arrange it to suit your needs. You spent time in there when he was away, fiddling around with whatever you had set up, and you just mostly liked to sit in there and read, but today you were feeling impatient, so you placed the book down and let out an irritable sigh. 

You weren't upset with him, far from it, you were upset with yourself for being so codependent on this man. He brought out a side to you that you didn't know existed, and you were starting to feel that feeling in the pit of your stomach whenever you began to think of Rusty. It would lead from missing him and wondering what he was thinking, to wondering if he'd ever let you fuck him in his truck. You sure hoped he would at some point, you needed to ride him while he was in that seat of his–

“Oh god,” you grumbled and stood up from the chair, then you decided it was best to go and take a shower. Wash away your sinful thoughts, that's what you needed to do. You pulled yourself away from the room and weaved your way around to the shared room you had, then rummaged through the closet, your mind desperately trying to bury the thoughts you were having. 

The trickling of water felt great as soon as it hit your body, your muscles relaxed under the warmth of it, so you cranked it up just a little more to get the temperature just a bit higher. A smile grew across your face as the water soaked your hair, ran down your back, and you stood there to allow yourself just a few moments to gather your thoughts. But as soon as you closed your eyes, his face was there. You could imagine him walking into the bathroom as soon as he heard the water start running, opening the door, and just leaning against the frame, because he’d know you heard him, so you’d peek out. 

“What’re you up to, sugar?” 

You’d scoff and look up at him as you peeked through the shower curtain meekly. “Taking a shower, why?”

“Just wonderin’ why you didn’t invite me in.”

Rusty was like that sometimes; he would want to be wherever you were, wanting to touch you in every place he possibly could reach. You weren’t opposed to it, you encouraged it even, but something about his gentle touch when he was in one of those moods always made you feel empty without him here. Your fingertips ghosted over your lips and slid down to your neck -his favorite spot to kiss you- as you stood beneath the running water still, smiling to yourself. 

The impure thoughts that took over your mind were willing you to slide those fingers lower and lower, smiling as your eyes remained closed until you gently dipped them between your legs. Your vivid memory of the way his large, calloused hands handled you so well flooded back, and the way he curled those two fingers into that sweet spot made you buckle at the knees. Yours weren’t as good as his, but they’d get the job done. You let out a small moan, your breath hitched as you pictured Rusty pinning you against the cold tiles of the shower. 

“Easy there, girl, you’re so eager. Gonna take my time with you.”

Just thinking about his deep voice as smooth as pouring a glass of whiskey, it tickled your brain in the right ways when he spoke you through everything he did. Most times he'd tease you, edging you to the point you were a shaking, sobbing mess. Other times, he would talk you through it and watch you as your face contorted from feeling pure bliss to feeling complete frustration.  

“Please, Rusty, I wanna cum so bad,” you'd whine. 

“Oh you will if I let'cha,” he'd respond smoothly, knowing you couldn't do much to change his mind. 

Your head leaned back as the water sprayed down your chest, you couldn't help but grab your breast and squeeze it, playing gently with your hardened nipple. God, you needed him so badly, and you wondered when he'd be back home, back in your bed. You wanted to feel his mouth between your legs, feeling the way his facial hair rubbed against the inside of your thighs sent you into a frenzy every time, and he knew what to do to get you to cum on command. 

You wished he was here to pick you up and place you in the bed, but you had to make due until he came back. With a sigh, you removed your fingers from yourself and washed them off, then stepped out of the shower with a towel wrapped around you. The sting of sadness set in a little as you shuffled to the large bed in the center of the master bedroom, seeing how painfully empty his side was. He was already gone for a couple of weeks, and it had been a while since you last called to check on him, so maybe you would do that to ease your loneliness. But you felt so pent up and needed to feel a release in one way or another, so maybe you'd call afterward. 

As you crawled into the middle of your bed, you laid on your back and sprawled out, one leg lifted as you placed your fingers between your already slick folds, thinking of the large, rough man of your dreams. He would know how to take care of you, it's like he was easily attuned to your needs and what you preferred, and his fingers fit so well into your hole. You moaned out softly, your body moved as you rolled against your hand, wanting to feel his thick digits stretching you so well. The room was filled with your moans and wet sounds from between your legs, and you pulled those mental images to mind that made you want to descend into your orgasm, already so eager to feel the sweet relief so you could finally relax. 

What you hadn't been paying attention to was the front door opening and closing. 

Rusty had tried to call you twice, but your phone was still sitting in your office space beside the book you were reading, so you had no indication that Rusty was going to surprise you by coming back a little earlier than expected. He heard your moan from downstairs, his ears perked up and tuned into his surroundings. At first, he was a little worried by your lack of reaching out, but it seemed he'd caught you at the perfect time. He was missing you while he was away, and he already felt the growing excitement in his jeans. Slowly but surely, he made his way up the stairs, making sure he didn't tip you off just yet, and the sounds coming from you only sounded more enticing the closer he’d gotten. 

He had finally got to the doorway and he peeked inside, watching as you lay there spread out on your shared bed, touching yourself as your eyes were squeezed shut. You were pumping your fingers in and out, curling into that sweet spot as you moaned out Rusty's name over and over, wishing he was there to take care of you. It was hard for him to keep watching and do nothing, he had to have you, he couldn't wait for much longer.

His large hand slowly pushed the door open as you continued, no sound came from the hinges which would have given away his position. Instead, he stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe with one arm keeping him in place while the other slid into his front pocket. Damn, you looked good like this, he was always a watcher, but never to this degree. 

“Well, damn, if I woulda known you were havin’ fun without me, I woulda came home sooner,” he said suddenly, his voice still low and deep. 

Your eyes snapped open as you removed your fingers from yourself, the sudden shock of the fear of being caught electrified your nerves. But after the initial shock, you stared up at him and smiled with a hint of embarrassment. 

“R-Rusty! You're home!” You wanted to run to him to greet him, but your soaked hand kept you from doing so. “You're back early.”

He stepped up toward the bed, his head cocked to the side as his hands managed to find his belt as he began to undo it. “Well, I wanted to surprise you, but it seems you surprised me first. What'chu doin’?” 

Your face was most definitely red as you closed your legs, poorly hiding the fact that You were just touching yourself. “Uh, I was just… I was thinking of you all day, I was missing you… and I got caught up…” You confessed with a blush in your cheeks. 

“Missin’ me that much means a lot to little ol’ me, sugar.” He stepped up to the edge of the bed and without missing a beat, he grabbed your legs and pulled you toward him, which caused you to yelp out a little in surprise, but you were now face to face with him. He smiled down at you beneath the brim of his aging trucker hat, his eyes bore deep into yours. “Havin’ all the fun without me, ain't you?”

“I wasn't having that much fun, I was wishing you were here with me,” you explained, staring up at the large man. “But… you're here now, and well, I haven't finished…”

“Oh, so you want me to help you with that, huh?” He asked with a smirk, his large hands still resting on your ankles. “And so what if I do help you?” He asked playfully. “What do I get out of this if you finish?”

You knew he wanted you just as bad as you needed him, and he wanted you to work for it now that he caught you in the act. 

“Couldn't keep those pretty little fingers away, just had to get impatient, huh?” He chuckled as he lowered his body onto you, massive in size compared to you. 

You bit your lip as you reached up for his neck, wanting to play with the hair that peeked out from beneath the hat. He stopped just above you, hovering enough that if you were to lean up, he would be just out of reach. “Rusty, kiss me, please?”

He just chuckled in response, that smile you fell for immediately peeking from beneath the hat. “Oh I don't think so, you gotta earn that, sweetheart.”

You were about to whine in protest, just wanting to dote on the man now that he was back, but you barely had time to recover when he lowered his mouth to your inner thigh, kissing it and biting at your sensitive flesh that was oh-so close to your heat. The gasp that escaped was loud and sharp, but you soon turned into a whining mess the more he teased you. 

“Rustyyyyy~” You whined as you tugged at his hair, causing the hat to shift and fall off to the side of the bed. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it.”

“You mean you didn't mean to get caught, is that it?” 

Your face was flushed at the realization that he was right, you meant to pleasure yourself but wanted to get it out of the way so you could hold off a while longer for him to get home. 

“Been so greedy ever since you were fucked,” he huffed and lowered his mouth back onto your thigh. “Give you a taste and now you're fuckin’ cock hungry.”

His lips kissed your slick folds over and over, just missing the mark of paying attention to your throbbing clit, and you swallowed a pathetic whimper that died in your throat as soon as he plunged two of his fingers into you. You hissed at the feeling of those calloused digits, curling into you and causing your walls to flutter around him. Your back arched as you rolled your hips into his hand, feeling that sweet friction that hit you in just the right way, you wanted to cry with how much you've missed him. 

“Oh my god, Rusty, please, keep going…” you sighed, your lead lolled off to the side as you removed the towel from your top half, and then you began to massage your breast as he kissed and touched you.

“You better not cum till I tell you to,” he warned in that deep honeyed voice. “Else you ain't gettin’ what you want.”

“I-I don't know if I can hold back–”

“Then you better learn real quick, sweetheart, you ain't gonna like the punishment you get if you don't.” 

You loved when he urged you, spoke to you like he did, the gravelly voice he got with you was so sexy that you could have fun just listening to him talk. You shifted and couldn't help but continue to fuck yourself on his hand, whimpering as you were stretched so good with just his fingers. Rusty then slid his tongue around, coating it in your wetness as he continued to finger you, gently playing with your clit. He sucked at it, watching as you went from a whiney mess to a blubbering mess. You twitched and your body jolted, feeling that intense pleasure on your clit, getting the friction you so desperately craved. 

“Oh, fuck, Rusty! Please!” you begged, your knees shaking as he held one of your legs up behind your knee. 

You urged him to continue, so he obliged and removed his fingers, to which you cried at the loss of feeling him inside of you. But now those had been replaced with that broad tongue, lapping away at your essence, wanting to taste the sweetheart he so desired in his absence. You could feel his facial hair scratch and tickle at your thighs, the overwhelming feeling of his stubble, his tongue, and his large hand gripping at your leg so hard was a lot to handle while your orgasm was building. 

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck–” You were at a loss for words with how well you were being treated, you'd loved how he got you so sinfully wet.

Rusty smiled as he brought his lips up to your aching nub and began to swirl his tongue around it before he began to suck at it. You cried out and thrust your hips upward, pushing yourself further against his mouth as if you could get him any closer to you, all while your hands were clutching at the comforter beneath you. 

You were so close to feeling a sweet release until his mouth harshly pulled away from you, leaving you feeling empty and aching. “Rusty, no! W-Why would you do that?”

“Told you you couldn't cum without my say so, and as much as I wanna taste you, I want you to cum while I'm inside you,” he explained, followed by a dark chuckle. 

It didn't take him long to crawl back toward you, one hand guiding himself to push against your folds, his head pushing against your clit. You squirmed and rocked against him, trying to feel him slide against your lips, just wanting anything more than the emptiness you felt right now. 

Your eyes closed, your brow furrowed, and you moaned every time he pushed against you just enough to feel just a little relief only to pull away again, and it was driving you insane. Your eyes fluttered open and you stared up at him with a look of pure frustration. 

“Rusty, pleaseeeee,” you begged him again, but you regretted doing so as soon as he pulled away from you. “Wait, what are–” 

He pushed himself up, then with a quick turn and an arm slung around your waist, you flew up against him, landing against his chest as he quickly positioned himself so you were straddling his lap as he sunk into the mattress. 

“Told you, sweetheart, you're gonna work for it.”

Your lips suddenly felt dry as you could feel his hard cock twitch beneath you. He was giving you the chance to ride him, how could you refuse him this? Your hands hold onto his shoulders to gain some leverage as you move yourself a little higher, allowing yourself to line up perfectly with him. Slowly you sunk onto him, the girth of his cock stretched you so well, it made you let out such a low sigh as your entire body shivered with the feeling of how much you needed this. 

“Oh my god, Rusty,” you groan out, your hands still placed on his shoulders. “Fuck, missed you so much while you were gone.”

“Yeah?” He asked with a wicked smirk, his hands gripped your waist as he pushed himself deeper inside of you until he bottomed out, and then those calloused fingers slid down to your thighs. 

Your hands immediately reached up and snaked through his hair, grabbing and pulling at it as his hands held you by your ass, allowing you to bounce on his cock at your own speed, but he could easily change that in an instant if he decided to. You leaned forward, wanting to kiss him, but he leaned back a little and smiled, chuckling at the disapproval plastered across your face. 

“Told you sugar, you gotta earn that. Need you to cum on me first, now start movin’,” he huffed as he leaned back against the pillow, watching you with interest as you began to bounce on him. 

He helped a little, lifting you every so often to get you to fall harder into his lap, your skin slapping in a beautiful rhythm as you cried out his name over and over again, but your voice hitched when he slipped his hand between the both of you to rub his thumb against your clit. Your fingers clasped the back of his head and neck, your nails grazing his skin while he continued to gauge your reaction. 

“Oh fuck, Rusty-” you gasp.

His thumb rubbed in increasingly tighter albeit sloppy circles, and that only caused the pleasant tingle between your legs to grow with a deeper intensity. Rusty then pressed the pad of his thumb harshly against your throbbing nub while he thrusted his hips upward at the same time, watching you as you were coming undone as he watched you intensely. 

“Yeah, you’re doin’ a good job there, wonder if I should let you cum now…” He chuckled as he saw your eyes roll back once he jerked his hips upward, hitting that spot in such a delicious manner.

“Please, oh my god, PLEASE-”

“Please what, sweetheart?” 

You shivered and bit your lip, wanting to stifle your moan so you could form a singular sentence. “Please, I wanna cum so bad. Please, let me cum…”

Rusty’s grip tightened as his smile widened. “Atta girl, love hearin’ you beg for it.” His hand pulled away from your possibly bruised hip as he reached up, his massive palm now wrapped around your throat as he pounded into you harder, faster, all while still stimulating your clit. 

You cried out, your whines and moans drowned out by the blasphemous sounds that came from your slick-soaked pussy. He relished in the sounds you made, you knew he wanted you to be as vocal as you possibly could, even in public when he would make sure you knew who you belonged to. His hands released your throat and moved away from your clit, then slid around to rest on your ass, gripping your cheeks hard as he began to fuck himself into you. He’d give you the release you so desperately craved, and the release he needed to lose himself in being away from you for all that time. 

“Rusty, I won’t be able to hold it...” you warned through gritted teeth, your hands resting firmly on his chest as you clawed your nails against his skin. 

“Guess I could let you cum on me, then,” Rusty offered through his heaving breath, still smiling up at you. 

Several more hard thrusts against your aching cunt and you were going to be ruined in his lap, you cried out while he continued to plow into you, making you take every inch you could of him as your body tensed and finally released that pleasure. You couldn’t even take the time to ride out your orgasm, Rusty was relentless and continued to take you at his unyielding pace, wanting to be able to cum deep inside of you. His thighs tensed with each roll of his hips, his body straining beneath you as your walls clenched around him.

Rusty wrapped his arms around your waist and buried himself to the hilt inside of you, coming hard as spurts of his hot seed coated your insides, his deep honeyed voice released a guttural growl as he gripped you hard. It throbbed as he held you in place, but you were too tired to move much anyway, so you allowed him to use you as he deemed fit as you lay limp in his arms.

You were both straining to catch your breath as you both lay there, your body now collapsed on top of him while his arms released the firm grip on your waist and just draped over you gently. Your head was resting on his shoulder as you attempted to catch your breath, and Rusty just lay there with his hand stroking your hair softly, rewarding you for your good behavior with the softness only you really got to see. He wouldn’t force you off after, he enjoyed the affection you showered him with during moments like these, so he allowed you to remain splayed on top of him. 

“That was amazing…” You sighed happily, your eyes closed as you listened to his heart beating. You couldn’t find the heart to pull away from him, even if he’d been gone for a while, you just wanted to enjoy it with him, no matter how brief. 

His arms wrapped around you as if to give you a hug that he hadn’t thought of giving you till that very moment, so you moved your head lazily to look up at him, your chin resting against his chest. “You still haven’t given me that kiss yet,” you huffed and pushed out your bottom lip. 

Rusty just let out a low chuckle as he always did, but he pushed himself up and slid his hand around your neck, tangling in the sweat-soaked hairs as he pulled you into a heated kiss. When you pulled away, you smiled up at him and felt content with everything in the world now. 

“Missed you, too, sugar. Next time you’re feelin’ lonely like that, I suggest you call me up.”

“And how will that help me exactly?” 

Rusty just laughed again and slid his hand down to your ass, giving it a firm slap. “Oh, I’ll think of a way.”

[littlenightma]

Warm Hands | Rusty Nail x Female!Reader | Part 2 (NSFW)

Author’s Note: Part 1

Tags: NSFW content, older man/younger woman, size difference, dubious consent, kidnapping, possessive behavior, Rusty is doting on reader, lots o’ smut.

The convenience store had long disappeared beyond the horizon miles back, but you still stared at the rear view mirror hoping it would somehow appear again or that you would wake up in your bed letting you know this was all just a bad dream.

The snow storm was worsening as time passed, layering the road with snow, ice, and dirt. He took his time driving and acted nonchalant to the fact that he kidnapped you as he occasionally fiddled with the radio when it lost signal.

Your grocery bag sat in your lap, teasing you of what your night could have been. Watching your favorite show while you lounged on couch, eating your snacks and watching as the snow fell peacefully outside.

Yeah, what could have been.

“What’s your name?” you asked, breaking the silence.

“It’s Rusty. Rusty Nail.”

You visibly deflated. “I meant your real name.”

“That is my name.”

“No, it’s not. It’s a nickname. There’s a difference.”

Rusty shook his head, further cementing his previous statement. “I haven’t considered myself that name in years. Everyone knows me as Rusty and that’s what you’ll call me too.”

“Don’t you want to know my name at least?”

His eyes twinkled amusingly. “I already what your name is, [Y/N].”

Your mouth parted in confusion. “Wait — how do you know that?”

Without taking his eyes off the road, he reached into his jacket and pulled out your wallet, offering it back to you. His voice and face teamed up to convey their disapproval and you felt like a child being chastised by their parent for being caught sneaking out at night.

“This fell when you tried running away from me.”

You took your wallet and examined it in disdain. You never realized it fell nor that he picked it up. So now he knew not just your name, but also where you lived. Great. You stuffed it into your own jacket roughly, punishing it for making your situation worse.

“Where are we going anyway?”

“Home. It’s not too much further.”

You drew your eyebrows together. “You’re taking me to your home?”

He glanced at you then back to the road. “Where did you think I was taking you?”

You shrugged, mumbling quietly. “I don’t know, some cheap motel or something...”

He sighed heavily through his nose, chest rising and falling with confliction. He then rubbed his chin in thought before finally settling on what to say.

“Well, I ain't, so don't worry your pretty little head about it."

You scuffed at his absurd logic. “Yeah, like that’s what I’m worried about.”

Stop calling me pretty.

“I wasn’t lying when I said I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“No, but I know I won’t change your mind either.”

“You could let me go.”

His answer was quick and final. “No.”

You shook your bag in aggravation, crumbling the snacks inside. “Why not? Can’t you find someone else to fuck?”

He raised an eyebrow, giving you a questioning glance. “Who said anything about fucking you?”

Your eyes widened in disbelief. His head had to be screwed on too tight or maybe he was smoking more than just a nicotine cigarette.

“You! Back at the store you said you wanted company for the night. What else is that supposed to mean? I sure as hell know you’re not taking me home to chat about this lovely weather we’re having.”

He chuckled low, long fingers gliding across the steering wheel as he turned it. Those same fingers flexed away from the wheel before going back to gripping it until his knuckles turned white. His voice noticeably deepened in timbre, exacerbated with desire as he spoke.

“I have every intention on getting you in my bed tonight, but it isn’t to fuck you like some lot lizard I found slinking in the streets. Oh no, little one, I’m gonna be to taking my sweet time with you and you’re going to enjoy every second of it.”

In that moment, the truck passed another car who was going just as slow and careful. Their headlights brightened the tenebrous truck and in their hazy glow, Rusty’s blue eyes caught yours. They threatened you with a dark seductiveness and a dangerous allure and had Rusty not kept on driving you would have thought he was getting ready to pounce you right there.

You found yourself struck silent, dumbfounded and uneasy. You wordlessly turned back in your seat and watched as snowflakes hit the glass pane of your window. His words played back in your mind over and over again like it was an old VCR player and somebody was constantly pressing replay.

From his side of the truck, Rusty’s resistance was waning as time passed into the drive and the more he sensed your rising turmoil. He wanted to pull the truck over to the curb and spread you wide over his seats so he could quell your worries.

He had no intention of bringing home any woman when he stopped by the local shop to get a working lighter and a pack of cigarettes. After being on the road for months on end, he was ready to call it quits for a while, get some chores done around the house he’d been putting off and rest up while he had the chance to.

Funny how plans could change in a blink of an eye.

He swore he stood witness to an angel dashing through those sliding doors bearing a halo of snow and a mischievous smile highlighting your pink champagne lips. He smelled your shampoo when you whipped by briskly not sparing him a glance. He peered curiously over the shelves and watched you peruse the store in determination. He figured you were after something important like bread or milk or even a flashlight, but when you came around the corner carrying an accomplished grin and an arm full of sweets, he grinned himself.

Cute little thing.

He thought nothing more you after that, still intending to get his smokes and lighter and head home, but whether by accident or fate, his hand brushed yours when he passed you and it all hit him at once; your soft skin, your slight intake of breath, your timorous glance and just like that you had drawn him in. Rusty was enamored and he wanted nothing more than for you to follow him because between the few steps he took between you and the door, he decided he wasn’t going home alone tonight.

He waited patiently in his truck for you, cock already half-erect and painful from the delicious images in his head. He lit a cigarette and adjusted himself. Inclining his head back, he blew a few rings of smoke up into the air. His bed had been feeling mighty cold lately the thought of you warming it sounded too good too pass up. He looked out the window and saw you walking closer, eyeing his truck with apprehension.

Come to me, pretty girl. Just a little closer now.

He rolled the window down.

~ ~ ~ ~

“She ain’t much, but she’s home.”

He pulled the truck up a long and winding dirt road until a two-story, white farm house came into view. It looked run down and unkept, but it was a lot better than the dungeon you had pictured in your mind on the way there.

He got out of the truck and came around to your side. He unlocked your door with a key he took from his pocket and offered you a hand. You eyed it with uncertainty and glanced behind his raised arm into the vast darkness where the crystalline snow morphed into the black of night. You contemplated whether or not you should make a run for it.

“I know these mountains like the back of my hand. You’d never make it out of them before I or the animals get you and that’s only if you don’t freeze to death first. But—” He opened the door wider and stepped aside. “—If you’re that set on leaving then I won’t stop you.”

The chilly night air brushed against the back of your neck threateningly. You pressed your lips together. He was right. Running away would be a death sentence. What made it even worse was that you knew he knew you wouldn’t actually run so him giving you an opportunity to was his way of showing you who was actually in control and it was working. Begrudgingly, you placed a hand in his. He squeezed it, giving you a gruntled look.

“Good girl.”

Your heart skipped a beat. The people pleaser in you delighted in the praise even though it came from Rusty. He led you up the walkway still holding your hand. You didn’t understand why since it should have been clear that you weren’t going to run, but when when you almost slipped on a nasty patch of ice, he steadied you with his strong grip and his refusal to drop your hand became perfectly clear; he was making sure you didn’t fall and hurt yourself.

The inside of his house was interesting to say the least as it looked pretty much abandoned. Cobwebs hung in intricate designs from the ceiling fan and the hardwood floor had long lost its shine due to the several years worth dirt and dust doing their best to speed up the aging process. Various things were stacked into high piles in the corners of the room while others were haphazardly thrown about, forgotten and unused. The house appeared more like a storage unit than an actual home.

Rusty went and turned on a few lamps and the heating system, warming the house both in light and temperature. He came around and took off your coat and laid it on the back of the couch along with his two which left him in a green, button up flannel and a brown t-shirt. He was more well-built than you’d expected and when he bent down to pick up one of his coats that fell to the floor, his arm muscles flexed and you were intimidated by how dramatically they bulged.

He could really hurt me if he wanted to…

Curiosity got the best of you as you wandered the house. You were in awe with how much stuff there was to look at and for a couple of minutes your mind forgot why you were brought here in the first place as you glided your fingers across the different things you came across. Rusty trailed a few feet behind you. He kept quiet, letting you do your own thinking. He found himself growing more self conscious about the state of his house and hoped you didn’t find it too much of a wreck.

“You don’t really spend a lot of time here, do you?”

Rusty shook his head, a hint of regret in his voice. “No, not really. My job requires me to be on the road most of the time so everything in here just sits collecting dust for the most part. Could always use a women’s touch I suppose.”

“You mean to clean?”

Rusty grimaced when he realized how his comment came across and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”

You laughed softly. “I know what you meant. Maybe you’ll find someone who will add some life to this place.”

His gaze settled on you, unwavering and penetrating. “Yeah. Maybe.”

You turned away from his unspoken insinuation and met a set of stairs leading you up to what had to be his bedroom. It was the only room you hadn’t encountered yet. No longer feeling up to exploring you tried turning back, but Rusty stopped you short.

“You still have one more room left to see.”

You couldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t want to see it.”

He leaned in his closer as if to share a secret. His lips scraped your ear, traveling up to your temple, right above your eye where he pressed a kiss there. The small, loving gesture quelled your consternation, but a thick, foreboding cloud of doubt still lingered because the kiss held an implying promise of what was yet to come. You pressed your face into his chest seeking comfort and he rubbed your back a few times before he turned you around to face the stairs.

“Stairway to heaven, sweetheart. Up you go.”

He lightly swatted your backside causing you to yelp. You felt his chest move as he chuckled and pushed you forward. With your head bowed defeatedly, you trudged up the steps. Rusty couldn’t help but appreciate the sway of your hips and how tight your jeans were.

Entering the bedroom, he slid past you, catching one of your belt loops with his finger. He tugged you with him to the bed where he sat on the edge of it, pulling you between his knees. You wrapped your arms around yourself and waited for his direction. You felt out of place and worried that if you didn’t do good enough that it would cause him to become angry and lash out at you. Without dropping your gaze, he unbuttoned his flannel and peeled it off before lifting the brown t-shirt over his head, taking his hat with it. He threw the clothes and hat, well, you didn’t know where he threw them because you were too busy being mesmerized by his chest.

His chest was a chest belonging to a laborer, well muscled and broad. The temptation to touch him was hard to resist and before you knew it, you were exploring it like much like you did his house, running your fingers through the sparse salt and pepper hair. He radiated warmth like a cup of freshly poured coffee that you couldn’t wait to wrap your hands around and enjoy.

As you marveled his body, the next words tumbled out before you could stop them. “You’re really handsome, Rusty. Like one of those greek sculptures.”

The astonished look on his usual stoic face made you regret your words. He cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. Embarrassed, you dropped your hands and whispered an apology. Rusty was quick to mend things.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for, darlin.’ I just ain’t used to receiving compliments is all.” He grabbed your hands and placed them back on his shoulders and smiled gently. “Will you keep going for me?”

Instead of going back down his chest, you chose to run your hands up the back of his neck to his head. Rusty sat with his hands on your hips, enjoying the attention you were giving him. He closed his eyes when your nails scraped his scalp and groaned loudly.

“Fuck, baby. That feels nice.”

Without his eyes on you, you felt more comfortable to do your own thing and in a spur of confidence, you peeled your shirt off and unhooked your bra. Rusty opened his eyes questioningly and instantly locked onto your breasts that were bobbing teasingly a few inches away. His mouth parted and without a warning he latched onto a nipple and began sucking. His tongue swirled around it, hardening it until it was ripe, and he let it go to do the same to the other one.

Your head leaned back while your chest leaned forward into his mouth. One of your hands cradled the back of his head while the other raked through his long hair, pushing it back from his face so he could suck without interruption. You both groaned in unison from the reciprocating pleasure.

With your hands still lost in his hair, he roamed his own over your stomach, appreciating how perfect and healthy you looked. He wanted to mark you somehow. He wanted you remember this night long after it’s over, like a blood stain that refused to lift.

He suddenly wrapped his arms around your waist and hurled you onto your back on the bed. The old springs squealed beneath the toppling weight of you and Rusty. He loomed over you on all fours like a predator ready to ravage its prey. You felt the vibration of your zipper being pulled down against your pussy and it sent a jolt of adrenaline through you. Sliding his hands beneath you, he coaxed you up.

“Lift your hips for me, sweetheart.”

Maybe it was his deep southern drawl or the way he naturally exuded power and dominance that compelled you to obey without question because as soon as he commanded you to, your hips were in the air. He pulled your jeans down until they were mid-thigh and from there he slipped your off your shoes and socks before sliding the jeans the rest of the way. So now you lay in his bed with nothing but a pair of panties and you couldn’t have been more nervous for them to be stripped away too.

You were a perfect balance between shy and tempting. You crossed your legs attempting to hide from his lecherous gaze, but it was fruitless. Rusty had already mesmerized your beautiful body and all its curves and bends. He grabbed the plush muscle of your thighs, kneading it like dough. His eyes asked for permission to go further, to finally touch you where he desperately wanted to. You sucked in a breath and nodded, looking up at him with so much trust. It warmed Rusty up better than any blazing fire ever could.

You’re safe with me, little one. You’ll always be safe with me.

He peeled your underwear down slowly. His eyes never rose until they were completely gone, tossing them aside like everything else. The air swept across your bareness and you knew there was no going back now. When he did finally look, he made a noise low in his throat and his eyes darkened to a deeper shade. Your pussy was already glistening for him. He pushed your knee with a heavy palm, prompting you to spread yourself.

His lecherous stare on any other man would have repulsed you, but on him it only made the butterflies in your stomach flutter eagerly. Gradually, like the first drifts of snow falling from a cliff before the start of an avalanche, the heavy walls you had built finally collapsed and you shuddered happily.

He playfully rubbed his chin on your thigh. The stubble from his jaw tickled your skin and you reacted in a fit of giggles. Rusty visibly lit up at the sound. He couldn’t remember the last time he heard laughter in his house. He did it again, eyes focused on you. He earned another laugh and loved the smile you tried preventing from spreading. You lurched forward and pushed his face away.

“Hey, stop that! It tickles!”

He smirked, feigning innocence. “Stop what?”

Your eyes narrowed. “You know what.”

“Let me just go down lower then…”

His full lips kissed your thighs, going further until they hovered over your folds. Your breath hitched when his hot breath warmed your pussy. He was so close, yet so far away. It was delicious torture. When you lifted your hips up to his mouth, he abruptly pulled away. You noisily voiced your dissatisfaction.

“Want do you want, baby? Use your words. I ain’t no mind reader.”

You lifted your hips again, begging helplessly. “Rusty.”

“Rusty what? What do you want me to do?”

“I want your mouth on me. Make me come, please.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely…”

He used two fingers to spread your lips open and latched onto your clit without mercy. A guttural sound echoed in the room and your eyes widened when you realized it didn’t come from Rusty, but from you. This spurred Rusty on and he sucked your sensitive clit so good that you thought the roof was caving in as your eyes rolled back into your skull. You tangled your hands into his hair, using his face as a make shift saddle and his curls as the reins.

“That’s it, baby,” he praised adoringly between licks. “Make me put my mouth exactly where you want it.”

You tugged his hair and pushed him down in a particular spot that had you shaking and weeping because his stubbled chin rubbed your aching pussy in all the right and wrong ways. Soon you felt yourself drawing close to your release and you grinded fiercely on his face in anticipation.

“Rusty—” you gasped, back arching, “I’m going to cum. Don’t stop!”

You could bring any man to his knees by begging like that and you surely brought him to his. There was nothing Rusty wouldn’t have done for you in that moment if it meant hearing that sweet voice of yours crying out to him in ecstasy.

“Fill my mouth, little one,” he growled, reclaiming your pussy with an animalistic ferocity, hungrily eating you out with his entire face buried between your legs so that only the back of his head could be seen.

Like the good girl you were, you did exactly as you were told. Your ribs expanded from the gasp, head reeling back as your orgasm shook you. Rusty never stopped thrusting his tongue, lapping up every drop of your cum. He swiftly pulled you forward so could he drive his tongue further and as expertly as he drove his truck. From his position on his knees, he watched you writhe and squirm, unable to keep still from the intense pleasure that overwhelmed you.

Your thighs locked around his head and covered his ears, muffling your loud moans. Rusty licked everywhere, from the inside of your thighs to the very inner workings of your spasming pussy as if he was a starving man who refused to be wasteful. With a final swipe of his long tongue, Rusty had you cleaned up good. He then placed a satisfied kiss on your pussy before straightening himself.

“How you feeling?”

“I…I need a minute,” you said between breaths. “It’s never felt like that before.”

He kissed your shoulder, purring reassuringly. “Take all the time you need, darlin’. There’s no rush.”

Comforted by his words, you laid back leisurely on his pillows, still experiencing the aftershocks of your orgasm. Rusty laid beside you, running his hands over you soothingly. The lamp on his bedside table casted a tangerine glow on your body and it suited your flushed face perfectly.

A few hours ago you wanted nothing to do with Rusty or his hands. But now your eyes followed their every move, seeking them out when he raised them away then relaxing when he brought them back down again.

His movements casted a soporific effect on you, and soon your eyes began to flutter close and your breathing slowed down to an even rhythm. Your body sank deeper into the mattress as the tension left your body and to Rusty it only confirmed to him that he had an angel sleeping in his bed.

Rusty bent down and kissed the valley between your breasts, easing you back awake. “Don’t give out on me yet, pretty girl. We’re just getting started.”

[egophiliac]

they have now revealed another character for ride kamens, hayate, and it looks like he's a kr jin homage? glad they confirmed that it's not only titular riders getting representation, but still, a pretty off the cuff surprise for me

yeah, Jin is a welcome pull, but a pretty weird one! I saw the post when it dropped (don't ask why I was looking at twitter at 3 AM) and the replies were. very confused. :') nice to see some Jin rep though! and if this opens the door to characters based on more deepcut riders, all the better!

of course, if they really want to stay true to the spirit of Jin, we know what he'll be like

[canisalbus]

you say machete has to be closeted then why's he always wearing them little heels

Maybe he thinks he's a tiny bit nicer looking in them.

[plutonic-rage]

10/10 performance

Me

NEXT

[nowwheresmynut]

Mvk takes the kids out for a fun day at Disney

[ywpd-translations]

Ride 774: Kiji, coming!!

Pag 1

1: Welcome, to the Emperor's throne!!

My aim is the double crown!!

Pag 2

4: Ahhh... you're fast, the two of you

I thought I could catch you for sure at 2km left

Pag 3

1: But it took me until “1km left”, yon!!

Pag 4

3: Ah!?

He

4: caught up!? Who....

Pag 5

1: who the hell are you!?

2: The two people in the lead are taking the curve and passing the sign that says that there's 1km left until the sprint line.....

Pag 6

1: No, it's three people!!

Three people passed the “1km left” sign!!

2: There's more people!? Since when!?

Wasn't it two people!?

What happened!? Who's that? That jersey-

At the last curve, suddenly-

3: It's not “who are you”....!!

Dammit!! I know!! This guy!!

Pag 7

1: There's one more person who we need to pay special attention to

2: Gunma Ryousei's third year, Kiji Kyuui

3: Ohh, Kiji? Who's that

Oi, I already told you about this in advance, Manami!! Come on, at the sea

Is that so?

4: What's your data about him?

5: There's basically no record of him in road racing

6: He's an..... “assassin” from the MTB world, huh

7: Is he aiming for the goal?

8: Yeah.... the goal...

That's right....

We should be glad

Pag 8

1: That he's only aiming for the goal

2: Hayaaaa!!

3: Dammit!! The first result.... so you're aiming for the sprint too!?

4: Since they said you were aiming for the goal I thought you were a climber like Manami!!

Pag 9

1: Let's speed up, Orange!! He'll catch up!!

2: I've seen it before!! This guy's jersey

3: That day.... he appeared suddenly on that bike with the thick tires

Pag 10

1: It's the guy who chased Onoda-san and the Hakogaku guy with the bouncy hair!!

2: Before that, Onoda-san said they were friends and that he's “strong”!!

3: He's coming to catch up to

4: mine and San-na's battle

Pag 11

1: He really is strong!!

Let's switch, I'll pull!!

Pag 12

1: Orange!!

3: They're in tune

You have amazing judgment and explosive power!!

4: When I caught up at the last curve

5: Even though they could have also accepted me and made me join them

Without making eye contact or calling out to each other, in an instant at the same time they made the decision

6: that they would “cooperate” to leave me behind!! Yon!!

You're really....

Pag 13

4: What's that

He's lowering his stance and pushing on the handles like he's about to dance....!!

5: Hayaaaa

Pag 14

1: You're really close friends!!

Pag 15

4: He lined up to us in one go!?

Pag 16

1: This guy!! Was it an optical illusion? Just now, I saw something like a cloud of dust behind me

2: Takadajou told us this

Be careful

3: I've been told that the power that a MTB rider can produce in a short time

4: is 1.5 times that of a road racing cyclist

5: This guy can match this top speed!?

8: Ah!?

9: Huh!?

Pag 17

2: In between!?

He came in between!?

Ah!?

3: You bastard, usually when one catches up he joins in the back

Pag 18

1: It's road racing theory!!

4: This guy doesn't know the theory?

5: 800m left until the sprint line!!

6: 1

Pag 19

1: 2

What's this- San-na, did this guy suddenly started counting

2: What's this

The sign for an attack?

3: 3

Pag 20

2: Alright, I recovered

5: Well then, I'll go

Pag 21

1: Ahead, yon

2: So it really was a sign for attacking!!

Who's that guy!!

[teaboot]

Wonder if your coworkers are being weird because your neurodivergent who survived trauma? We do tend to have a very specific flavor that makes people either get weirded out, want to adopt us, or just go "same hat" 😎

I think it's a combination of things, really?

I'm not great at picking up on social drama until it's already on top of me, so I try to keep to myself, but over time I've learned that a certain kind of personality reads that as "haughty superiority complex who thinks they're better than everyone else", and once someone decides that's the case, literally anything I do can be read as a passive-agressive attack, and that's usually when it spirals.

No actually idea I that's what's happening this time, but that's what my money's on.

Not much to be done about it but wait it out. One of us'll quit or die eventually anyways. Just need to whine about it sometimes

[greensparty]

Preview: 2024 IFFBoston

Forget about Xmas, this is the most wonderful time of the year!  It is now my favorite time of year in Boston! My favorite film festival in Boston, in Massachusetts and possibly the world is Independent Film Festival Boston (read my coverage here).  I have a special place for this festival: in 2014 my documentary Life on the V: The Story of V66 had its World Premiere at the festival, and in 2015 I was on the Documentary Jury. The 2024 festival is at Somerville Theatre (Somerville), Brattle Theatre (Cambridge), and Coolidge Corner Theatre (Brookline) from Wed. May 1 to Wed. May 8, 2024!

2024 IFFBoston logo

Here are just some of the Official Selections that are on my radar:

Wed. 5/1/24:

The Opening Night Film is the recent Sundance hit Ghostlight, about a construction worker who joins a theater group!

Thurs. 5/2/24:

One of the most highly-anticipated movies of this year is I Saw the TV Glow about two teens who bond over their fandom of a mysterious TV show. I caught director Jane Schoenbrun's last film We're All Going to the World's Fair when it was was at the 2021 IFFBoston and while I had a mixed response to the film, I'm excited to see their follow up.

In a festival first, they are going to be doing their first episodic screening with the first episode of a 3-part documentary series Ren Faire airing on HBO later this year. While IFFBoston is very much a film festival and not a TV festival, I think it's kind of cool they are expanding their reach to include this doc about a Texas renaissance faire.

Fri. 5/3/24:

In the recent Sundance hit My Old Ass, an 18-year-old's mushroom trip brings her face-to-face with her 39-year-old self played by Aubrey Plaza (who makes everything she's in better).

Sat. 5/4/24:

In addition to all of the shorts package programs, it's always exciting to see IFFBoston do a Students Short Showcase made up of student films.

After my friend Michael Gill passed away in 2022, my hope was that his long in the works documentary about Billy Ruane, owner of legendary Boston rock club The Middle East (actually Cambridge, but a big part of the Boston music scene), would somehow get completed and released. I met up with Gill a few times before he moved around 2017 as I had heard about his doc and there was a lot of overlap with his doc and my doc Life on the V: The Story of V66 in terms of interviewees and subject matter. I am thrilled to see that co-director Scott Evans completed The Road to Ruane and it is finally premiering. The fact that the doc features loads of Middle East archival footage and interviews with members of Dinosaur Jr., The Lemonheads, Buffalo Tom, Letters To Cleo, Morphine has my attention too!

Sun. 5/5/24:

In the comedy Tallywacker, a two-member rock band's friendship is tested when one of them gets a gig touring with a major rock star.

My friends director Dan Habib and editor James Rutenbeck were at the 2018 IFFBoston with the great doc Intelligent Lives. Now they are back with a new doc The Ride Ahead co-directed by Dan's son Samuel about his own personal journey to becoming an adult. “But no one tells you how to be an adult,” Samuel says, “let alone an adult with a disability.” I've been hearing a lot of great things about this doc!

The always good Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a comic genius, but she's flexed her dramatic muscles in films like You Hurt My Feelings. In Tuesday she plays a mother who must confront death with her teenage daughter in the form of a talking bird.

Mon. 5/6/24:

My friend Mark Phinney's film Fat was at 2014 IFFBoston when I was there with Life on the V: The Story of V66. We've remained good friends since then and I'm super excited to see his new feature Fear of Flying about a man struggling with his anxieties while trying to maintain his relationships.

Earlier this year I got to cover the Oscar-nominated Short Films and one of the nominees for Best Documentary was Nai Nai & Wai Po from director Sean Wang. Without missing a beat, Wang is back his with his Sundance award-winner Didi.

Tues. 5/7/24:

In My Own Normal, director Alexandre Freeman turns the camera on himself: living with cerebral palsy since age two he is now an adult about to become a new father and how his parents react to this. This is produced by Friends producer Kevin S. Bright, Oscar-winner Chris Cooper and my friend Ariana Garfinkel (she's an IFFBoston alum having produced Best and Most Beautiful Things, You Don't Nomi, and On These Grounds).

Sing Sing stars recent Oscar nominee Colman Domingo as a man imprisoned at Sing Sing who is involved with a theater troupe for incarcerated men. This movie actually walks the walk and features the majority of its cast made up of formerly incarcerated members of the real life theater troupe the film is based on.

Wed. 5/8/24:

The Closing Night Film is the comedy Thelma starring Oscar-nominee June Squibb as an elderly woman who is scammed by a caller claiming to be her grandson and goes on a city-wide quest to get back what's hers. I've been hearing a lot of good things about this one!

For tickets and info to IFFBoston

[cheylouwho]

"South park doesn't even have any gay people" don't disrespect big gay al ever again he walked so every cartoon after could run

[tinalbion]

Hi!! I am OBSESSED with Rusty Nail atm, so I was wondering how he would react to a wife reader who has really bad anxiety?

Thanks for the amazing content :)

-phantom

Oh you absolutely can!

I apologize for the EXTREME lateness of this, I fell into the void, I got back into art and I just sorta got taken over by drawing, but I've been craving to write again and I am missing my truck driver man, so let's get right back into it! Anytime you need some Rusty, I am here for you!

Rusty Comforting You When You're Dealing with Anxiety ||

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: None - Comfort, fluff

𝐋𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡: 1k

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: Rusty tries his best to help you when you're feeling anxious

© 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐛𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞, 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲, 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫!

Rusty wouldn't have picked up on it right away when you two started seeing each other, he just figured that all people have their quirks, and everyone is different, but the more he pays attention to you, the more he's led to believe it's not just a part of your everyday habits. He kept a watchful eye on you after one particular night when you felt yourself slowly spiraling out of control, and you had simply tried to play it off that you were fine. But Rusty knew you weren't, everything he knew about you said otherwise. 

Anxiety was fickle and yours acted up in any situation, anything could trigger it, and you despised it. One moment you sat there beside Rusty, your eyes fluttering closed as you drifted off, and then your brain would go into overthinking mode, which made you snap your eyes open and stare ahead as you tried your best to calm down. Rusty wasn't well suited nor capable of dealing with ways to calm you, but he learned over time being married to you.

Whether it was something simple like bringing you a warm cup of whatever beverage you preferred to calm your nerves, or he remembered to pick up one of your favorite snacks from the gas station he stopped in, it was always in the back of his mind to think of things that could make you happy, to ease you into comfort. But most times, he would offer himself.

The large man would always practically wrap around your entire body when he held you, and you clung to him and refused to let go as he would sit there with you, making sure you did some deep breaths in through your nose and out of your mouth. He didn't have many words of wisdom to impart upon you, but who needed them when he would speak to you in that low tone you found so soothing? His large hand would caress your back, making sure he spoke to you calmly about anything and everything. 

“Hey now, you're alright, ain't ya?” He would ask you. “You're here, I'm here. I gotchu,” he cooed. “Yer alright, I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“Promise?” “Course I promise.”

His voice was a source of comfort to you, you were always so attracted to his voice, and you had heard the range from anger to softness. No matter the situation, you focused on that and it grounded you for the most part. You’d curl up into his side, and no matter what you were feeling, his warmth, his largeness, it always enveloped you and made you feel tranquility like nothing else. Once you two had bonded, he fully believed that you would be his forever and vice versa, so he took the ‘in sickness and in health’ vow very seriously. He was quick to anger in some situations, but when it came to you, he had all the patience in the world, and he would do his best to walk you through it.

Whenever you had the attention span to sit down and discuss your anxiety with him, you would tell him things that could help you, and coming from him, it would mean the world to you if he could attempt anything to get you to destress. 

So that’s what he did, and whatever the reason why you were feeling the way you were that day, he’d guide you by your hand and have you sit down either on the sofa or outside on the porch. He knew fresh air helped most days, or if he was out on the road, he’d immediately find a place to pull over so he could walk you through it. No matter what, he wanted to be your source of safety, and if it meant prolonging a job, he’d do it. 

He likes to make sure you’re aware he’s there, whether its placing his massive hand on the small of your back, your thigh, or your knee. He finds it comforting for himself if he physically shows you that he’s there for you. He also hopes that you’re able to understand that this is the way he is when it comes to being there for you. Even if you have to cry to let out your frustrations, he will hold you and let you do whatever it was you needed to do. 

Another thing he took notice of is that you like to steal his undershirts. “They smell like you!” you’d say, pouting if he tried to take it. So he’d give you one of his shirts to wear when you were having a particularly bad day. He slowly but surely became aware of your moods and how they could fluctuate, but he found you to be one of the most precious people on the planet. You accepted him and all of his faults, he’d never deny yours, so he vowed to take care of you. 

Doesn’t matter what time of day it is, if he deems it necessary, he’s going upstairs, running you a bath, and then he’s making you lay down with him just to relax your muscles. You were always tense, always bouncing your leg, or just trying to find busy work whenever you were unable to perform anything, especially that one time you had forgotten about the food cooking on the stovetop. Thankfully, Rusty was home and not out on the job, he was able to save a few of the side dishes before a fire started, but he didn’t blame you for it. Ever since then, he understood that this was something more and he constantly kept an eye on you, took notice of how you spoke to him, and would easily pick up on tone of voice and body language. 

Rusty can understand taking care of someone who offends you, a physical person he can easily dispose of and watch the life drain from their eyes for treating you in such a way. But this? It was a challenge to be sure, but he wasn’t too old of a dog to learn new tricks, and he was trying to make more of an effort since you always went out of your way for him. 

[littlenightma]

Hello. I may have been obsessed with Rusty Nail for the last few hours. I wonder if you can write a Yandere Rust Nail headcanon?

Yandere!Rusty Nail Headcanons

• Yandere!Rusty gives absolutely zero fucks and tolerates zero bullshit. All he really wants is to be left the hell alone, but it doesn’t always end up happening that way. This time, though, he was pleasantly surprised because he ended up with you. It might take a while for you to adjust to your new life with him, but he promises it’s for your own good.

• Will kill anyone like that if they upset you intentionally or not. He hates seeing your tears and how you become withdrawn with sadness. Will make you watch as he chains them to his truck and drags them down the road until there is nothing left but a trail of blood, guts, and bones. And if you get scared, he’ll console you with gentle kisses and tight hugs, rocking you back and forth until you are okay again.

• “The world is full of people like that, but don’t you worry, little one. I’ll be here to take care of ‘em.”

• If you break any his rules, he will break you back respectively. The rules are in place for a reason. They are there for your protection and for his peace of mind when he is not around and breaking them is a good way to get on his bad side (which he hates showing you) but if you can’t listen, then you’ll have to face the consequences. He has to make sure you know you’re place.

• “I know it hurts, darlin’, but you know what else hurt? That little slap you gave me when I found you.” He inspects the mark on your face. “So just consider this as me returning the favor.”

• And when you really break the rules that leaves him so pissed that he could kill someone, anyone, he ties you up naked and defenseless in his trailer. You’re hanging up by your arms, barely able to stand up straight, having to resort to using your toes. He wants you to be as uncomfortable as possible. He hates doing it and he hates that you have forced him to resort to this, but you have to learn, baby. You can see the sadness and disappointment written across his face before he goes emotionless.

• He drives and drives and drives with you bouncing in the back. Your arms hurt, your legs are tired, and you’re calling out for Rusty to stop but he ignores your cries. He keeps on driving — speeding up at some points when you become hysterical — like you’re nothing but cattle on the way to the slaughterhouse. It’s not until you have gone silent from exhaustion when the truck finally comes to a stop.

• “Have you learned your lesson?”

• You hiccup, voice barely above a whisper. “Yes.”

• “Will you try to leave?”

• “No.”

• He cups your cheek and makes you look at him. “I hate doing this to you. Don’t make me do it again.”

• If you think his punishments are bad, his rewards are far better. After a particularly rough handling session and Rusty is certain that you have learned your lesson, he does whatever he can to ease the pain and fatigue. Runs you a hot bath (provides bubbles or candles if requested) and cooks you a warm meal to have after.

• Gets you whatever you want. He is a provider at heart and provide for you he will. Price doesn’t matter to him, but he appreciates it when you bring it up anyway. You hold something for too long at the store and he’s making you put it in the basket despite your protests. You want new clothes? You got them. You want a new game that just released? It’s ordered. Whatever you want so you can live life happy and comfortable with him you will get, understand?

• This man is only truly happy when you’re happy. Ever since you came into his life he isn’t in those foul moods he often found himself in and he sees the world a little more brighter than he used to. But don’t ever think he won’t knock some heads when he needs to.

• The way your eyes light up when he presents his gifts to you makes him feel like the best man in the world and so does the combination of a tackle and a tight hug you give him to show how grateful you are. Those are the moments he lives for, too see you happy, protected, and all his.

NSFW 18+

• Will edge you like a sorry motherfucker until you are begging for his cock and relentlessly insisting that you’ll never try to leave him. Rusty is possessive and protective over his shit and the thought of you gone hurts him straight to the core. He was a lone rider for so long and he’ll be damned if he ever has to live his life without you in it.

• His cock, chain, or belt. Take your pick, baby, because either way you’re getting punished. The welts on your ass and the stinging pain on your cheek are nothing compared to the what he felt when he realized you had escaped. He thought he’d lost you, but he found you and brought you right back home, didn’t he?

• He takes you out to a field when the moon is high in the sky. He tells you to take off your clothes and lay on your stomach. You hear the unmistakable unbuckling of his belt.

• “I thought I was being good, Daddy. Am I still being punished?”

• He hushes you and turns your head. You bury your face into your arms expecting a smack, but it never comes. Rusty peppers kisses down your spine and presses his hips into yours. He gently thrusts for hours, never going at a pace that throws you two over the edge, but it still feels nice to be connected to him.

• His arms are cradling you and his chest is on your back. You feel his heat, his heartbeat, his entire body moving and all night long he’s whispering how much he loves you and that he will never let you go. You’re his baby and no one will ever take care of you like he does. He’s yours, don’t you feel it? He never wants to put his cock inside anyone else and he for damn sure never wants another cock inside you.

• “Are you ready to come with me, baby? I’m gonna fill you up so good. Let me hear you, okay? Goddamn, you look so damn beautiful taking my seed.”

• You and him come together multiple times under the moon and stars until neither of you can move. He covers you both with the blanket he brought and you fall asleep wrapped up in Rusty’s embrace thinking that being with him isn’t such a bad thing after all.

[suddencolds]

The Worst Timing | [5/5]

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Was I out for long?”

“A couple minutes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yves blinks. “Where are you going?”

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

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

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

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

Vincent’s eyebrows furrow. “What?”

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I already finished eating,” Vincent says.

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

“Take the bed,” Vincent says.

Yves blinks at him. “What?”

“The bed’s warmer.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vincent says nothing, to that.

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

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

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

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

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

“Sleep,” Vincent says, firmly. 

And Yves—

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

—

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

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

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

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

“How’s the book?” Yves says.

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

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

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

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

“I’m fine,” Yves says. 

It has the opposite effect he intends it to.

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

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

“What things?”

“Kdowing my limits.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is that a proposition?” Vincent says.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ah.

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

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

“What?”

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

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

“Distracting is a bit disingenuous.”

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

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

“I don’t think that’s true.”

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

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

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

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

“I’d already finished eating.”

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

“Because you’re ill.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yves doesn’t say anything, to that.

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

Yves’s heart twists.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Reading Hemingway,” Yves adds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But when he allows himself to look, he sees—

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

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

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

—

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

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

Yves opens his eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

EPILOGUE

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

“Yes,” Yves says. It’s not a lie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Since when has Aimee been your spokesperson?”

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

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

This time, Vincent smiles. “Maybe.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yves nearly drops the pillow he’s holding. 

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

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

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