Drabbles
Answers to the "Fall-in-Love" requests. Shamelessly unbeta'd. Enjoy!
Grace-verse, Loretta/husband for serialvortex
Loretta’s first crush is when she’s thirteen.
The boy is tall and blond and has a face that could have been painted on; great, blue eyes and a perfectly proportioned pout (if she looks close enough, she can see where the brush strokes left tiny lines beneath his nose, across his cheeks, can see where the paint gathers on his neck, balls at his throat). His name is Joseph Tudor, and she thinks she could be in love.
He fucks her on her fourteenth birthday. Cold and hard and rough between sweaty sheets, her clothes flung across the floor, his jeans still tight around his ankles, but he smells beautiful afterwards and the way his eyelashes brush against his cheekbone is enough for her to think that she could do this forever.
She still thinks it in the morning, when his side of the bed is consumed by cold air and flung away sheets, still thinks it until she goes to school and finds out that he’d fucked Jenna Havan an hour earlier, Susan Bradshore two later.
*
Loretta thinks all men are assholes.
*
Her first real boyfriend is a lanky seventeen year old with shoulder-length chocolate hair and a grin that could disarm even the most armour-heavy knight.
He doesn’t even pay for dinner.
*
“So how many men have you slept with?”
Loretta’s eyes shoot up faster than even she’d thought possible, stare at this guy through a thick fringe and heavier eyelashes. “Excuse me?”
The guy shrugs, reaches over his menu to grab at his coffee cup. “I mean, I know it’s our first date and all, but I want to know what I’m in for.”
“I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
“Ah,” he says, and he leans back just enough to let a leer sprawl across his face. “So you’re either a virgin or a slut.”
She thinks it’s a great judge of character that she doesn’t deck the fucker, but it’s hard and maybe her fingers, maybe they clench enough that her nails leave moon-like imprints in the palm of her hands as she gets up to leave. Maybe she looks like a natural disaster waiting to happen, building and building and shaking so hard she could explode.
He doesn’t try and stop her.
*
Somewhere in here she meets Brendon Urie.
*
David’s nice enough, good-looking and shy and maybe they wouldn’t have lasted anyway, but Loretta, after the baby dies she just…she can’t even fucking look at him.
*
She doesn’t date for a while, can’t bring herself to, can’t even glance in the fucking mirror, but Jon’s too nice, all kind glances and gentle smile and when he tells her that he has a friend, an art critic with a brain the size of Africa and a heart as big as the sea, she finds it hard to say no.
He’s good-looking, tall as mountain tops and he’d tower over her if she were any smaller. “Hi,” he says, and he scratches at the back of his head, furrows his brow and quirks a shaky grin and this guy, this huge, smart, everything of a guy, he’s fucking bashful, quirky and shy and Loretta, she’s never dated anyone who’s actually given a fuck before (not other than David anyway).
She’s not really sure what to think, but he laughs at her jokes (even when they’re not funny) and the way he smiles at her all night, with something that glistens beyond his pupils, far between his irises, it’s something that she’s never seen before, something that tells her this, it isn’t nothing.
He holds the door open for her when they leave, kisses her on the cheek and when that, when she gets sparks from that, she knows it isn’t nothing. Knows that this, she’ll tuck it into the corner of her glory box, the far region of her head where she keeps her most precious, precious things because this, she thinks it could be love.
Bleach. Ichigo/Orihime for
super7
The clouds have gathered, built up like clay, like cotton candy, like blankets on the end of a bed.
Orihime’s cheeks are flushed, bright and pink like fresh cut rose buds and she clenches her eyelids so tight over honey irises that Ichigo wonders what it is, exactly, that she’s trying so hard to hold back.
“I love you,” she yells, calls out onto the howling breeze. Says it so loud that the sound catches in Ichigo’s ears, won’t get out no matter how long he’ll shower for that night.
The rain pours.
*
“You said thank you?” and Rukia, she quirks a brow, stabs the juicebox with the straw and proceeds to shoot a sickeningly all-knowing smirk up at him from around the straw.
Ichigo kicks at the sidewalk, “Well, what the hell was I supposed to say?”
Rukia slurps, but leans back on her heels, blinks as the sun beats down, tries to take over the sky. “’I love you too’ woulda been a good place to start.”
“Jeez,” he huffs, glares down at her and he’s just, he’s pissed off at everything, at Orihime and Rukia and yeah, himself. “I don’t though.”
Rukia quirks a brow again, ends up rocking to the side just enough to throw the empty juicebox in the nearest bin. “Right,” she says. “Right.”
*
Ichigo can’t say how he got here, to sitting down on his porch, head in hands and arse wet from the puddles that sprawl across the wood, drip between the cracks. He can’t say how he got to the point where even his dad knew what was going on.
“I didn’t love your mum right away either,” Isshin says, and he drops himself onto the seat next to Ichigo. “I didn’t love her until I realized I had all along.”
“What the hell?” Ichigo asks, but there’s no heart behind it, no bitter smile or angry, self-righteous volume.
“Girls find it easier to say,” Isshin says, “with us men though, it all boils down to whether or not you give a shit.”
“Men won’t ever know if they love a girl until they’re faced with that moment that’s like a bus to the chest and then suddenly it’s all consuming.”
*
Today is sunnier, light and warmth that leak over every available surface and Ichigo tries not to sweat as Orihime takes his hand in hers.
“I don’t know if I can say it back,” he says.
“Say what?” and her voice is liquid honey, syrup, something almost painfully pleasant.
Ichigo rubs his hands on his jeans, stares at the dirt, the sky, at Orihime’s two long, pale hands. “Maybe I could love you one day, but, I mean, we’re eighteen and I’m not…ready and-“
“Ichigo,” her forehead’s furrowed and her lips are pursed. “I didn’t say it to get you to say it back. I said it because it’s true and it was the right time for me to say it. It would be dumb for you to only respond.”
She laughs this deep, throaty thing that melts in Ichigo’s ears, echoes through his head and drips down the back of his skull and his spine and oh, he thinks.
Oh.
P!atd, Brendon/Ryan. For: toxickk924
Thing is, Ryan doesn’t believe in love.
“We should play scrabble,” and Brendon leans back in the seat, grins hard and fast and Spencer just, Spencer rolls his eyes, props an elbow on the table and stares at Brendon through too many eyelashes.
“Ryan will kick your ass and then you’ll spend the rest of the year fucking pouting and stomping your feet and acting like a fucking three year old and-“
“I vote no,” Jon says, and he’s flicking through the album on his digital camera, moving through too many memories, pick and choose, delete and keep, food for thought or food for trash can.
“Therefore unanimous,” Spencer states, closing his eyes and Brendon, he howls in outrage, throws himself bodily up from where he slouched.
“The fuck, Spencer Smith! Ryan and I haven’t even voted-“
Spencer rolls his eyes (again), “As best friend to the aforementioned Ryan Ross, I am too often allowed to take control of his votes.”
“Well, what about me?”
“You traded me your voting powers for half a tub of cookie dough ice-cream three weeks ago, Urie,” Jon intercepts. “Unanimous.”
Maybe it was a good idea to take time out for the new record, but really, it probably wasn’t. Ryan very much likes these people (would love, would say that, but he’s not hypocritical, not that likely to preach what he doesn’t practice), but to live in each other, to tour for months and months and find that when you stop (finally, tape’s on pause, the movements, they’re still jerky), you finally break, all that really matters is the fact that when you pack to go home, you can’t tell what’s yours or what’s theirs anymore. That should probably mean more than it does.
Brendon’s sidling closer, pout in place, picture perfect on his face. “You love me, Ryan Rossy,” he says, and he presses his face into the grove of Ryan’s neck. Ryan, all he can feel is heated breath and wet lips, can smell pizza and ice-cream and can hear the paused music on guitar heroes. Ryan, all he can think is, this is my life.
The sun’s filtering through the blinds, splicing against Brendon’s unwashed hair and reflecting off his glasses. Right now, Brendon’s eyes are liquid chocolate, animal fur, rusty copper and Ryan could write a million words about it. He could write forever about freckles and long necks and miles of pale skin, could write about Brendon’s breath sliding over his skin and Brendon’s fingers trembling around his wrist, around his waist. He could write sonnets and lyrics and entire fucking chick flicks about how all of this makes him feel so - - how it makes him feel.
“Coz, y’know,” Brendon says, and he presses a kiss to Ryan’s neck. “I love you.”
And Ryan though, he doesn’t believe in love, but Brendon and his stupid words and his stupid lips and his stupid eyes that are too fucking wide, it doesn’t stop Ryan from leaning in close, pressing back. It doesn’t stop him from giving a fuck, and it probably should.
Ryan doesn’t believe in love, but in moments like these, he sorta wishes he did.
Grace-verse, Loretta/husband for serialvortex
Loretta’s first crush is when she’s thirteen.
The boy is tall and blond and has a face that could have been painted on; great, blue eyes and a perfectly proportioned pout (if she looks close enough, she can see where the brush strokes left tiny lines beneath his nose, across his cheeks, can see where the paint gathers on his neck, balls at his throat). His name is Joseph Tudor, and she thinks she could be in love.
He fucks her on her fourteenth birthday. Cold and hard and rough between sweaty sheets, her clothes flung across the floor, his jeans still tight around his ankles, but he smells beautiful afterwards and the way his eyelashes brush against his cheekbone is enough for her to think that she could do this forever.
She still thinks it in the morning, when his side of the bed is consumed by cold air and flung away sheets, still thinks it until she goes to school and finds out that he’d fucked Jenna Havan an hour earlier, Susan Bradshore two later.
*
Loretta thinks all men are assholes.
*
Her first real boyfriend is a lanky seventeen year old with shoulder-length chocolate hair and a grin that could disarm even the most armour-heavy knight.
He doesn’t even pay for dinner.
*
“So how many men have you slept with?”
Loretta’s eyes shoot up faster than even she’d thought possible, stare at this guy through a thick fringe and heavier eyelashes. “Excuse me?”
The guy shrugs, reaches over his menu to grab at his coffee cup. “I mean, I know it’s our first date and all, but I want to know what I’m in for.”
“I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
“Ah,” he says, and he leans back just enough to let a leer sprawl across his face. “So you’re either a virgin or a slut.”
She thinks it’s a great judge of character that she doesn’t deck the fucker, but it’s hard and maybe her fingers, maybe they clench enough that her nails leave moon-like imprints in the palm of her hands as she gets up to leave. Maybe she looks like a natural disaster waiting to happen, building and building and shaking so hard she could explode.
He doesn’t try and stop her.
*
Somewhere in here she meets Brendon Urie.
*
David’s nice enough, good-looking and shy and maybe they wouldn’t have lasted anyway, but Loretta, after the baby dies she just…she can’t even fucking look at him.
*
She doesn’t date for a while, can’t bring herself to, can’t even glance in the fucking mirror, but Jon’s too nice, all kind glances and gentle smile and when he tells her that he has a friend, an art critic with a brain the size of Africa and a heart as big as the sea, she finds it hard to say no.
He’s good-looking, tall as mountain tops and he’d tower over her if she were any smaller. “Hi,” he says, and he scratches at the back of his head, furrows his brow and quirks a shaky grin and this guy, this huge, smart, everything of a guy, he’s fucking bashful, quirky and shy and Loretta, she’s never dated anyone who’s actually given a fuck before (not other than David anyway).
She’s not really sure what to think, but he laughs at her jokes (even when they’re not funny) and the way he smiles at her all night, with something that glistens beyond his pupils, far between his irises, it’s something that she’s never seen before, something that tells her this, it isn’t nothing.
He holds the door open for her when they leave, kisses her on the cheek and when that, when she gets sparks from that, she knows it isn’t nothing. Knows that this, she’ll tuck it into the corner of her glory box, the far region of her head where she keeps her most precious, precious things because this, she thinks it could be love.
Bleach. Ichigo/Orihime for
super7
The clouds have gathered, built up like clay, like cotton candy, like blankets on the end of a bed.
Orihime’s cheeks are flushed, bright and pink like fresh cut rose buds and she clenches her eyelids so tight over honey irises that Ichigo wonders what it is, exactly, that she’s trying so hard to hold back.
“I love you,” she yells, calls out onto the howling breeze. Says it so loud that the sound catches in Ichigo’s ears, won’t get out no matter how long he’ll shower for that night.
The rain pours.
*
“You said thank you?” and Rukia, she quirks a brow, stabs the juicebox with the straw and proceeds to shoot a sickeningly all-knowing smirk up at him from around the straw.
Ichigo kicks at the sidewalk, “Well, what the hell was I supposed to say?”
Rukia slurps, but leans back on her heels, blinks as the sun beats down, tries to take over the sky. “’I love you too’ woulda been a good place to start.”
“Jeez,” he huffs, glares down at her and he’s just, he’s pissed off at everything, at Orihime and Rukia and yeah, himself. “I don’t though.”
Rukia quirks a brow again, ends up rocking to the side just enough to throw the empty juicebox in the nearest bin. “Right,” she says. “Right.”
*
Ichigo can’t say how he got here, to sitting down on his porch, head in hands and arse wet from the puddles that sprawl across the wood, drip between the cracks. He can’t say how he got to the point where even his dad knew what was going on.
“I didn’t love your mum right away either,” Isshin says, and he drops himself onto the seat next to Ichigo. “I didn’t love her until I realized I had all along.”
“What the hell?” Ichigo asks, but there’s no heart behind it, no bitter smile or angry, self-righteous volume.
“Girls find it easier to say,” Isshin says, “with us men though, it all boils down to whether or not you give a shit.”
“Men won’t ever know if they love a girl until they’re faced with that moment that’s like a bus to the chest and then suddenly it’s all consuming.”
*
Today is sunnier, light and warmth that leak over every available surface and Ichigo tries not to sweat as Orihime takes his hand in hers.
“I don’t know if I can say it back,” he says.
“Say what?” and her voice is liquid honey, syrup, something almost painfully pleasant.
Ichigo rubs his hands on his jeans, stares at the dirt, the sky, at Orihime’s two long, pale hands. “Maybe I could love you one day, but, I mean, we’re eighteen and I’m not…ready and-“
“Ichigo,” her forehead’s furrowed and her lips are pursed. “I didn’t say it to get you to say it back. I said it because it’s true and it was the right time for me to say it. It would be dumb for you to only respond.”
She laughs this deep, throaty thing that melts in Ichigo’s ears, echoes through his head and drips down the back of his skull and his spine and oh, he thinks.
Oh.
P!atd, Brendon/Ryan. For: toxickk924
Thing is, Ryan doesn’t believe in love.
“We should play scrabble,” and Brendon leans back in the seat, grins hard and fast and Spencer just, Spencer rolls his eyes, props an elbow on the table and stares at Brendon through too many eyelashes.
“Ryan will kick your ass and then you’ll spend the rest of the year fucking pouting and stomping your feet and acting like a fucking three year old and-“
“I vote no,” Jon says, and he’s flicking through the album on his digital camera, moving through too many memories, pick and choose, delete and keep, food for thought or food for trash can.
“Therefore unanimous,” Spencer states, closing his eyes and Brendon, he howls in outrage, throws himself bodily up from where he slouched.
“The fuck, Spencer Smith! Ryan and I haven’t even voted-“
Spencer rolls his eyes (again), “As best friend to the aforementioned Ryan Ross, I am too often allowed to take control of his votes.”
“Well, what about me?”
“You traded me your voting powers for half a tub of cookie dough ice-cream three weeks ago, Urie,” Jon intercepts. “Unanimous.”
Maybe it was a good idea to take time out for the new record, but really, it probably wasn’t. Ryan very much likes these people (would love, would say that, but he’s not hypocritical, not that likely to preach what he doesn’t practice), but to live in each other, to tour for months and months and find that when you stop (finally, tape’s on pause, the movements, they’re still jerky), you finally break, all that really matters is the fact that when you pack to go home, you can’t tell what’s yours or what’s theirs anymore. That should probably mean more than it does.
Brendon’s sidling closer, pout in place, picture perfect on his face. “You love me, Ryan Rossy,” he says, and he presses his face into the grove of Ryan’s neck. Ryan, all he can feel is heated breath and wet lips, can smell pizza and ice-cream and can hear the paused music on guitar heroes. Ryan, all he can think is, this is my life.
The sun’s filtering through the blinds, splicing against Brendon’s unwashed hair and reflecting off his glasses. Right now, Brendon’s eyes are liquid chocolate, animal fur, rusty copper and Ryan could write a million words about it. He could write forever about freckles and long necks and miles of pale skin, could write about Brendon’s breath sliding over his skin and Brendon’s fingers trembling around his wrist, around his waist. He could write sonnets and lyrics and entire fucking chick flicks about how all of this makes him feel so - - how it makes him feel.
“Coz, y’know,” Brendon says, and he presses a kiss to Ryan’s neck. “I love you.”
And Ryan though, he doesn’t believe in love, but Brendon and his stupid words and his stupid lips and his stupid eyes that are too fucking wide, it doesn’t stop Ryan from leaning in close, pressing back. It doesn’t stop him from giving a fuck, and it probably should.
Ryan doesn’t believe in love, but in moments like these, he sorta wishes he did.