* WIP * Ch. 10 - Lay You in the Ground (Am iZombie/Blaine x OC AU Fanfic)
Something’s wrong with Blaine—she can tell it in the tension in his shoulders, in the way his smile never quite reaches his eyes the whole night. He stays behind the bar with her, something he hasn’t done in weeks, and Kitty catches him watching her if a customer leans in to be heard over the music, definitely catches the anxious look on his face when she slips back to the walk-in to switch out a keg.
It's Ravi who brings it up, though, giving voice to Kitty’s low-simmering level of concern. As she slides an apple martini across the bar to him, he ducks close.
“Zombody is on edge tonight, innhe?”
Kitty’s gaze flicks over to Blaine, who is, at the moment, distracted by another customer. She leans on her elbows on the bar top, scrunching her nose at the man across from her. “He is. I don’t know why. I was going to ask you guys…figured maybe something he talked to you or Major about?”
Ravi shakes his head, squinting over at Blaine. “Nah. In fact, he put Clive off on an invite out afterhours tonight. There’s this place—roving hookah lounge. Pops up in a different place every weekend, somewhere in town. Very mellow. Food trucks swarm wherever it lands. The crew thought a wind-down would be nice after you two were off, Post closed up. A little peach tobacco and some carne asada fries.”
Kitty blanches at the thought of that particular combination. She can tell from the flush on the tall doctor’s face that he probably won’t make it to after-hours. The soft, slurred edges of his words are a fairly strong indicator, too.
He grins. “Maybe the waffle truck will be there. Or that curry fusion one. Anyway, me and Peyton, Liv and Major, and you…and Blaine?” Ravi’s eyebrows dance up and down his forehead in a way that is both suggestive and annoying.
“You’re as subtle as hot sauce on vanilla ice cream, my friend,” she quips. “Do they have that fusion at your little hipster pop-up?”
Ravi slaps the bar top. “Come on. Wouldn’t be as fun without you two. Don’t make it an awkward double date with Liv and Major. Things are so weird with them right now. And Don and Darcy are having a date night, apparently.”
“Mmmm,” she says, nodding. “That’s what Blaine said. But he neglected to explain the reason that he swapped shifts with Don.”
“He just wants to be near you, Manky Cat,” Ravi croons, propping his chin in one hand and batting his lashes.
“I will cut you off, Dr. Frankenstein. I have the power. No more booze.”
Mock-offended, Ravi snatches up the apple martini and swigs it down in three, swift gulps.
“I thought that was for Peyton!”
Ravi burps as he clinks the glass back down. “I thought you were cooler and that you would go with your friends to a hipster pop-up.”
“Ask Blaine, you animal.” She’s laughing now, her anxiety over Blaine’s odd mood nearly forgotten in the spectacle of Ravi’s tipsy antics.
“Ask me what?”
Ah, yes—that silky voice that somehow manages to sound, even over the pulse of the music, like it’s only for her ears. As if it’s not unnerving enough that he’s hovering behind her, so close that she can feel his words on her neck—hair up tonight, not because he’s asked, but because she knows he likes it that way with this dress—she's suddenly aware of his hand curving over her hip. Asserting a slight pressure. He presses to her back, and she can feel the hard lines of his chest through his thin linen shirt, against the open back of her dress.
God, she has never felt so physically unnerved by someone in her entire life. Or suspicious of someone. It’s an exhausting metronome.
“Waffles?” Ravi says, and then, he wobbles on his feet.
Blaine’s laughter is another wash of warmth against her bare nape.
“Did you cut him off?” Blaine asks lowly. He’s making slow circles with his thumb against the satin at her hip.
Kitty crosses her arms over her chest. "I did."
Another laugh, low and even closer. "Good girl. He looks like an oak about to topple."
Good girl? It’s suddenly, entirely too hot in The Post. Besides that, the whole thumb business is making her breath hitch.
And then, as if on cue, Ravi grins widely, pivots halfway toward the main bar, and promptly passes out.
(Full Chapter Coming SOON!)
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the last time I made a post about a character type I really like it went well, so here's another one: I love a character who is a piece of shit loser.
Let me explain: a very specific kind of piece of shit loser. This is a character who is almost never (at least not at first) a major protagonist or a major villain. They might be a mercenary or thief or black-hat hacker or in some other sort of antisocial "bad guy" line of work. They are some sort of henchman, or at least have strong henchman energy: dangerous and/or talented in specific skills perhaps, but also, importantly, undeniably a loser. Their personality sucks. They're uncharismatic and unpleasant. The heroes interact with them only when they must-- and this character deliberately cranks up the cynicism around especially sunny or optimistic heroes. They know the world is a cold, hard place, and the only thing they trust is cold, hard cash (if they're even getting paid for this shit). Things like "hope" and "friendship" are for suckers.
Until... somehow, some incident or confrontation or compounding sequence of events puts a crack in their armor. It's a crack where the light can get in-- and also, alarmingly (to others and to them), shine out. It turns out this piece of shit loser had a little spark of goodness buried deep inside all along, and no matter how much they dig in their heels and insist they don't care, their conscience is steadily pulling them over to the "good" side, and it's winning. And the heroes know it, too: this character might still be a piece of shit loser, but now they're their piece of shit loser, and there's no going back.
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