#i still think tyler can be redeemed but even if he isn’t non of what played out would be the think to turn wednesday away | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

itspileofgoodthings · 5 years

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just me rambling about the non-love triangle tvd ships trying to figure out what I think, haha. actually these are all the ships that involve caroline!

spoilers for later seasons

pros of stefan/caroline: i always thought their personalities work well against each other. they have a very good slow burn friends-to-lovers thing going on especially in season 5 where the romance springing out of friendship makes so much sense because then when it happens the romance is still built on that camaraderie and trust. Also they make each other laugh.

cons of stefan/caroline: stefan takes SO LONG to admit and/or articulate his feelings for her- way, way, way longer than he needed to. And that’s on the writers who decided to postpone them reaching a resolution until 6.22 but it’s also........like ugh. Caroline does nOT deserve this. She has always struggled with insecurity and with being a backup- specifically to Elena- so to have to sit and watch her think for so long that he doesn’t feel anything back, that he only sort of likes her, that maybe, if he could be bothered, he might be able to dredge up a feeling or two is super frustrating. she keeps putting her heart on the line and the way he behaves- this weird, emotional paralysis- hurts her so much and it’s frustrating on several levels.

pros of klaus/caroline: he DOES like her immediately. at first sight. and he literally doesn’t care about Elena. It’s refreshing. He’s a monster but it is very striking and lovely that after all this time, she was the one who captured his heart. Also Klaus is very delighted by her Caroline-ness. She makes him laugh- he appreciates how seriously she takes things, how much things mean to her and doesn’t laugh at her in a MEAN way.

cons of klaus/caroline: he’s kind of a monster. he doesn’t ever want to stick around mystic falls and doesn’t...really seem to want to change?? Klaus never fully gets redeemed. and what they have devolves into “caroline’s draw to the darkness” and that’s just a Mistake.

pros of tyler and caroline: okaY so one of my favorite tvd moments ever involves caroline and tyler! It’s right after he first turns. What we know of Tyler up to this point is that he doesn’t have that many people in his life. His dad is awful and even though his mom isn’t really- okay honestly I can’t remember what their relationship is like at all but at the very least she’s not that involved? And Tyler is used to being unwanted and unloved. As he’s going through this terrifying process, he has nobody and then. He has Caroline. She refuses to leave him- until she absolutely has to. She calms his fears, talks him through it, and then comes to find him when it’s over. And that moment when she runs in and says “Tyler you made it! You’re alright” and he says “no I’m not” and starts to cry is. ugh. I love it. You can see him love/fall in love with her completely because how couldn’t he? She was there for him in a way that no one was or had been and so it makes sense that he would tell Matt, “I kind of fell for her. I don’t know how anyone wouldn’t because she’s pretty incredible.”

cons of Tyler/Caroline: honestly him saying “kind of fell for her” sort of sums up my feelings. Not that I think that’s what Tyler meant! I think he’s just using casual language to make up for his vulnerability in true guy fashion/using casual language because that’s what we all do. but I don’t know that Tyler and Caroline actually fell in love. I mean, I think the show thinks they did! But I don’t see anything that really makes me, personally, think that they were truly, deeply in love with each other. But I do think that they love each other- a lot. And that’s the difference. Caroline reaches out to him and is there for him because she knows what it’s like to feel scared and alone; he responds with gratitude and love because why wouldn’t he?? And part of the wonder of this moment is that it’s so unexpected, that up to this point neither of these characters have had any time for each other. I can’t remember season 1 or their dynamic perfectly but I seem to remember them having a fairly healthy disdain for each other or at the very least not caring about each other’s existence at all and so to see the crisis of his werewolf-hood and her vampirism bring them together is so beautiful and dear to me. I just personally think they should have stayed friends. It makes sense that they don’t- that they’d bonded so deeply that they assumed they were in love but I would have loved to have seen them stay friends who would die for each other and that’s it. (But i mean obviously that’s not “it”. That’s BEAUTIFUL.)

pros of matt/caroline: they fall in love so naturally and so beautifully ahhh!!! she’s accidentally vulnerable with him and he sees what’s underneath her sparkle/need for control and loves her for it. they’re both achingly lonely in a lot of ways, family specifically, and they help comfort each other. the chemistry feels so true to me. his exasperation with her is grounded in fondness and love and gentle appreciation and she needs that combination of someone who understands and loves all of who she is. she helps draw him out and into a more sparkling center of joy- matt deserves that.

cons of matt/caroline: it makes sense that they don’t stay together narratively because Caroline thrives as a vampire and Matt doesn’t want to and can’t ever fully be a part of that world so them being separated by genres makes sense. but I also feel that the show breaks them apart unsatisfactorily and I’m like “they loved!!! each other!!!!!! what is this nonsense!!”

anyway. thoughts welcome.

#tvd #this is all my brain can do these days

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spockat · 6 years

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Fave Fandom and Ships

in answer to an ask from weeks ago, sorry

Fave Fandom and Ships

001 Fandom Discovery

Least favorite character – when MU Lorca fully revealed himself a villainous villainous man [stomping that guy’s face – really?! Diatribe against alien races? Ugh]. I HATED what the writers did with Lorca. Emperor Georgiou also hits the stereotypical notes, since she doesn’t have a mustache she twirls cooked ganglia instead, and she’s also been given the Villain Trope of being bisexual – because [gasp!] “what could be worse” [this trope is on display in many shows and movies]. Yeah, we get it, she uses every. body.

5 Fave Ships – Prime Lorca/Cornwell; MU Lorca/PU Burnham; Stamets/Culber; Tilly/Tyler, I really don’t have any others. While Tyler/Burnham was well-acted, I didn’t really feel it except in the moment at the end of “Into the Forest I Go”

Character I find most attractive – ummm GABRIEL LORCA

Character I would marry – Prime Lorca [In my headcanon he’s a really decent guy – as I write in my BlackQat Katriel fics. [Although he can be stubborn as fuck, and when captaining his ship he’s pretty much like MU Lorca in temperament, using a tad bit of sarcasm here and there. He’s a little salty, but damned good and his crew would follow him through hell because he’s loyal to them.]

Character I would be best friends with – Katrina Cornwell. I hope I’d be good friends with her, she is so levelheaded and [headcanon] kind and compassionate, and probably encourages her friends. [You don’t become a psychiatrist because you’re unsympathetic toward, or uninterested in, people.] Runners-up, Sylvia Tilly, because she’s effervescent and a good friend to people.

A random thought – I so want Cornwell to find and rescue Prime Lorca. [Headcanon] Prime’s been busting his ass trying to help the rebels in the MU, and succeeding in large part since the Emperor’s departure. Maybe Cornwell has to make a devil’s bargain with Section 31 to get over there … [story in progress, grin]

An unpopular opinion – Burnham was RIGHT and Georgiou was wrong. The Shenzhou should’ve given the Klingons “The Vulcan Hello.” It might have shocked the Klingons and sent them to regroup. OTOH it may have just resulted in …The Battle at the Binary Stars … anyway. So either a win/lose or a lose/lose, and since the latter happened, it would’ve been worth a try for result #1.

My Canon OTP – Prime Lorca and Cornwell. Though it’s not REALLY established in canon as a romance. I hope it will be. I’d love to see them on Risa or somewhere together and get into an adventure while Discovery’s on a subplot adventure. Or they could be the subplot adventure. I DON’T CARE I JUST WISH I COULD SEE THEM TOGETHER

My non-canon OTP – MU Lorca and Burnham. If only he’d been fighting a just revolution for the rights of all races. Michael may even have joined him, for a time, and returned to the Prime Universe, say, after helping MU Lorca institute a better government after the Emperor’s death. OH WELL.

Most badass character – Tossup between Michael Burnham and Kat Cornwell on the female side both BAFs, and Lorca is a BAF.

Most epic villain - Emperor Georgiou. Farming and eating Kelpiens, honest to god. Killing how many, like 10 people in her throne room because she couldn’t trust them to remain quiet? Blowing up the rebel base, well yuh, I guess that’s to be expected. Quite the opposite of her kind Prime counterpart.

Runner-Up: Kol. He’s a mean Klingon, even by Klingon standards!

Pairing I am not a fan of – Tyler and Burnham, not so much. Something about it seemed a lit-tle forced, and I can’t say what. The actors did a lovely job, but I didn’t see the chemistry that was so obvious between Lorca and Burnham and Lorca and Cornwell.

And this is totally personal and y’all knock yourselves out and enjoy them, but I’m not a big fan of slash pairings in general, i.e., “making a gay couple out of a sisterly or brotherly canon pair of friends.” It’s just not my thing and I know people love to do this because of many personal or fannish reasons, like more representation, and y’all have fun with it. It is a really big thing now. But … I ship Prime Cornwell/Lorca and it isn’t yet established as canon (any more than Kirk/Spock) that they’re a canon OTP, so …

… take my “slash” statement with a grain of salt. What you want is what you want and what I want is what I want, and in fandom we can have All The Things.

I love Stamets and Culber and I love that they are a canon gay OTP. [Stamets is great because he’s a salty scientist and a BAF (“as I’ve explained to you, Captain”)(injecting himself with tardigrade DNA to save “Ripper” and get the spore drive on line, and Culber is a warm fuzzy person with medical brilliance and compassion, kind of like Dr Crusher in TNG. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating him.]

Character I feel the writers screwed up one way or another – Tyler got it the worst. Couldn’t he have just been a human with Voq’s memories implanted? Jesus, they had to CHOP UP VOQ? At least give me a reason for that. Maybe because L’Rell’s beliefs said Voq would die if his body died? But noooo, no reason is given, and gratuitous bloody surgery scenes are there just [it seems to me] for shock value.

Lorca got fucked over [by the writers] the second he killed that guy outside the Agony Booth – he might could have been redeemed by leading a revolution for just causes.

Also Prime Georgiou. See elsewhere.

And Culber. What could be a worse screwup than killing a character for shock value?

Fave friendship - Burnham and Tilly

Character I most identify with – I am a lot like Tilly in the sense that I can be insecure and unsure and talk wayyy too much. As an older woman I also identify with Cornwell [and love her age-appropriate relationship with (Prime) Lorca, and I hope they’re more than just occasional fuck buddies.] In temperament I also identify with Salty!Lorca or CompassionateCulber or SaltyStamets.

Character I wish I could be – Cornwell or Burnham. Cornwell because she’s brilliant and capable, a psychiatrist, and a BAF Starfleet Admiral … being defiant and fighting L’Rell; with its attendant risks; Burnham because she’s also incredibly brilliant and capable and a BAF herself. Beaming onto the Sarcophagus to plant the sensors? Fighting Kol? I mean dayum.

002

Ships – Cornwell/Lorca [my OTP]; Burnham/Lorca

When I started shipping them – I think when she said, “Gabriel, why don’t you fix your damn eyes.”

[And Burnham/Lorca, when I read LadyFangs’ stories including “Human Nature,” then co-wrote “Human Nature II” with her.]

My thoughts – Headcanon: they didn’t meet till after Lorca graduated the Academy; Cornwell is four years older than he, and is a fully certified M.D. Psychiatrist [12 years] and comes to the Academy Officer Candidate School, which teaches candidates about the service and its history; Federation history as it relates to Starfleet; what it is to be an officer, not a civilian, and basic SERE training, working out, leadership. Kat graduates with a commission as a Lieutenant. My headcanon is that she and Gabriel actually meet when they each come to SFA for Command Training School. Kat has decided she wants to enter the command track after serving as counselor for a year or so on a Starbase. She’s heard from patients how bad upper leadership leads to a lot of poor decisions in the field, and she feels she can make a positive contribution in this area. More thoughts in my fanfiction at BlackQat on AO3.

What makes me happy about them – They are an age-appropriate couple!! This is pret-ty rare in TV and movies. I note that some actors do seek to have age-appropriate co-stars Cornwell is beautiful, but not a fresh-faced 25-y/o, and sexy Lorca finds her sexy, and yay, there’s hope for women my age, I’m so glad, and that’s why I ship them and write them.

What makes me sad about them – that MU Lorca fucked Cornwell in more than one sense of the word. Bastard! And, that now she feels “my Gabriel is dead.” I really started shipping pretty hard when she said that, and I really hope Season 2 brings us some canon Katriel “more than fuckbuddies” subplots or references.

Things done in fanfic that annoy me – Please, writers, I’m beggin’ ya, PLEASE proofread or have a Beta proof your story. I don’t spend much time on things that aren’t proofed and beta’d. I get too distracted from the story because I’m an editor.

If you love slash don’t read this paragraph which is strictly my opinion – It really annoys me when slash shippers tag their stories as het, then turn it into slash. This is stealthy and uncalled for. When slash shippers try to get hits on their stories by, say, tagging it as Spock/Uhura and then having Uhura “generously step out of the way because she realizes Spock has never really been into her, he’s really into Kirk,” blah blah blah, just so the author’s real OTP [not tagged], K/S, can be the OTP in the story. Feh! Just be honest and tag it as slash.

Things I look for in a fanfic – QUALITY WRITING, good proofreading, and BELIEVABLE CHARACTER PSYCHOLOGY. Also staying fairly true to the characters, maybe pushing the limits, but not too much. [I like to write angsty private Lorca—and the character, so far, is pretty much not so angsty [that was MU Lorca]—yet I still write him as an efficient, sometimes salty captain on the job. [In his private reflections and relationships, though, sometimes, angst.]

I also really love it when an author writes a Trek-like plot, with exploration, a little world-building, or a battle scenario, or alien interactions [something I don’t manage to do that often]. I love romance and angst, occasional fluff, and always, always, a good happy ending or at least a believable and decent resolution for the characters. I don’t like downer endings, but sometimes they’re realistic.

My wishlist – A canon romance for Cornwell and Prime Lorca! But first, FIND PRIME LORCA. He’s fighting alongside the rebels in the MU. He comes back to Prime Uni with Acute Stress Disorder or PTSD. Kat recommends a counselor and checks in with Gabriel to see how it’s going, but not poke her nose into his actual therapy, because that’s not the done thing. Slowly they progress to resume their romance.

Also let’s have another CBSAA series about Pike’s Enterprise. [I know that’s not what you asked.]

Who I’d be comfortable with [my OTP] ending up with, if not each other – Lorca, with Burnham. Cornwell, with … hmmm … unless we go over into cross-over country I just don’t know. Dr. McCoy of AU Trek maybe?

My happily ever after for my OTP – a long-distance romance, occasional meetings on Starbases or Risa or other planets; passionate discussions about Starfleet policy over coffee; passionate other moments [wink-wink-nudge-nudge], shirtless Lorca ;^), followed eventually by retirement somewhere where they can have fun outdoors. I think they’d be hikers and sailors and really dig nature and space travel to many planets.

003. Character

[Ask: Philippa Georgiou]

How I feel about her – the writers gave her a raw deal at the Binary Stars, though she fought like a boss when she fought with T’Kuvma. If only Burnham’s entire subsequent story arc hadn’t depended on her mutiny against a fairly reasonable captain. If only Georgiou had opened with the Vulcan Hello per Burnham’s suggestion and opened negotiations from there. Or discovered the Klingons didn’t want to negotiate, and left the system to regroup with a group of Starfleet ships. OH WELL. Now she’s dead, and that’s really too bad, because she was a good nurturer to Michael. She did let Burnham and Saru bitch at each other too much; I’d have told those two to take it off the Bridge. They were being unprofessional.

Any/all people I ship romantically with her Hmmm. She was a bit of a cipher so far as that went. I feel like she has an old friend / lover she goes on shore leave with. Hetero or bi/pan? IDK. Not sure if she’d have a long-term fully committed relationship; I think she is mother to her crew and that takes much of her emotional energy, but she could’ve been like I hope Gabriel will be and have had a long-distance romance. We have not met a lot of people her age in Discovery except Lorca, Cornwell, and the admirals at Headquarters, and sadly, Georgiou is no more, so the point seems moot.

My fave non-romantic rel for this character – other than “mothering” Michael Burnham, we don’t see a lot of this either. Some fanfic writers have Philippa as Gabriel and Katrina’s Academy classmate, an idea that I really like, although in my fic, she and Katrina are the same age and Gabriel’s a bit younger. [In my headcanon Philippa’s an Academy grad and proceeds straight from there; Kat’s a practicing psychiatrist who goes to Officer Candidate School, getting her commission as a Lieutenant, then straight on to Command Training School – where she meets Lorca and they fall in love.]

My unpopular opinion about this character – she should have listened to Michael and prevented the Battle at the Binary Stars. But could The Vulcan Hello have prevented it? Who knows. The writers had their plans. Alas Philippa paid the price :^( … she need not have died; the fallout from Burnham’s mutiny could have made for some sparks between them before Burnham went off for sentencing, and Michael could have been equally heartbroken that she had sundered her friendship for a battle prevention tactic.

One thing I wish had happened with the chac in canon – That she had listened to Michael. The Klingons might still have fought, but I feel Burnham was right with the Vulcan Hello and would have set the Klingons back a bit. [Shrug] But then there would have been no Lorca rescuing Burnham, no episodes 3 – 15, so … there we are. As I said above, she could have lived.

Favorite friendship for this character – Her friendship with Michael was not one of equals exactly, seeing as their ranks differ greatly. But I like the idea in some fics that she, Lorca and Cornwell are friendly.

My crossover ship – Haha, again, I’ve no idea, I don’t tend to think in those terms. Romantically? Matt Decker, before he lost his crew, got ASD and gave his life heroically to stop the Doomsday Machine, maybe. Or a stellar cartographer.

#fandom and ships #admiral katrina cornwell #captain gabriel lorca #captain philippa georgiou #star trek discovery

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kristie-rp · 5 years

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2. Redeeming Qualities

Who: Travis Coyte, Tyler Coyte, Vincent “Vince” Patterson, Olympias Rodriquez, Pandora Rodriquez, mentions Ethan Rodriquez. What: Travis didn’t actually want a roommate. He signed that particular form just to spite his families racism.

“Your college paperwork is here,” is what Travis’ father sneers at him when the envelope arrives. Travis would prefer to go over to Oly’s place and fill them out alongside her with Ethan’s guidance, Pandora leaning over their shoulders and being generally disruptive, but they ensured Oly’s paperwork was in early and are on a ski trip to the Alps to visit their grandmother. Travis was invited, as he usually is, but his father had been in a mood so he’d missed the window to ask.

Instead, he sits at the cramped desk in his bedroom while Tyler jabs at the DS she’s stolen from where it was charging. She’s taken it off the charger and the battery is pretty tragic, so he’s not surprised when she makes her fuck this noise and closes it a little harder than he’d like.

He’s more surprised when she leans over his shoulder to peer at his paperwork. The completed forms are stacked neatly on the right, but directly in front of him is the housing application form. He has filled in the basics for what feels like the seven hundredth time – he’s pretty sure that by the time he finishes these papers, he’ll be able to do this accurately with his eyes closed – and is about to tick the box for a single room when Tyler speaks up:

“Gross, humans. In a shared space, yuck. Who wants to deal with that? They smell, and even if they didn’t, they’re just – gross. The sweat and the tears and the waste,” Travis rolls his eyes at that, but he doesn’t comment to point out they produce plenty of unpleasant byproducts themselves, demonic or otherwise. He can see her reflection in the window in front of him, and over the dull grey of overcast Port Lyndon, she’s gesticulating wildly. It’s amusing to watch. “God, I don’t get what you see in that little pet of yours. Is it because she comes with a spare?”

That wipes the amused smile from Travis’ face. “Shut up,” he snaps, because there is more to Oly than her twin, thanks very much – it is true that he prefers Oly by herself so much of the time, but he isn’t going to say that to his little sister; she doesn’t need more ammunition in continuing their fathers racist crusade. And then he ticks the box for a double instead, not letting himself picture a tiny room with everything present in twos.

So really, it’s Tyler’s fault he ends up stuck with Vince.

*-*

“You’re late,” is what he’s greeted by, and it startles him into dropping the box. While he’s crashing about in the doorway, Oly pushes past him with her own box full of his stuff, and dumps it unceremoniously on his bed.

(“If you wanted a roommate, you could’ve asked me,” she had said when she’d found out he’d be rooming with some guy called Vincent Patterson. She’d been incredibly offended, since he knew full well she was moving to a flat by herself paid for by her fathers’ money, and that there’d be plenty of room for a roommate. Travis had ended up having to explain that he’d mostly applied out of spite towards his sister, which had gone a long way to getting his favourite person to stop with the damn adorable angry pout.)

“Nine thirty fits between eight and ten arrival,” Oly retorts, and when Travis finishes recollecting his dropped stuff, he finds her with her hand son her hips. He doesn’t have to look at her face to know she’s raising a challenging brow. He bites his lip as he looks at her, taking in her form the same way he always does, and ignores the thrill of want that’s familiar, too, and when he looks up, he meets the eyes of someone who is doubtlessly incredibly human, just like Tyler feared.

This Vincent guy is paler than Travis and Oly, is his first realization, closer to white than Oly’s olive skin. Dark hair and warm, friendly eyes light up his face, and there is a smirk on his lips as he responds to Oly. “Barely. You’d think you don’t wanna join in on the icebreakers Jayden has planned.”

“Who’s Jayden?” Oly asks, opening a drawer to make sure it’s empty. She removes something from it and cracks open the box to start putting away whatever is in the box Travis packed. He doesn’t complain; she knows him better than his own family, and he trusts her to put everything where he’ll be able to find it later.

“RA,” says the guy who must be Vincent, shifting focus from Oly to Trav. “I take it your lovely self isn’t Travis? Will you be here to visit?”

Oly snorts, and ignores the flirting. Travis bristles, because he usually does, and he’s well aware of the fact that she’s letting him deal with it – she could discourage unwanted attention if she wanted. “I’ll be visiting Oly just as much, if not more, than she’s here, not that it’s any of your business, thanks.”

“Woah, mate,” says probably-Vincent, and even raises his hands in surrender. “No need to get defensive. If you don’t want me hitting on your girlfriend, just say so.”

Any hope of a good first impression and a positive start to their roomatedom evaporates with that sentence. “Olympias isn’t my girlfriend,” Travis mutters, refusing to look at either of them. Oly doesn’t know about his gigantic crush that may or may not involve him being hopelessly in love with her, and he gets the feeling Vincent is the sort to spot it and see it as a weakness to be taken advantage of. Better to avoid that, he thinks.

Still, when Oly leaves him and Vince half an hour later – she isn’t supposed to be there for Irileth Dorm’s icebreakers, and he’s pretty sure she and Pandora have plans, anyway – he’s fully aware of the look Vince gives him.

“Not your girlfriend, huh?”

“Shut up.”

*-*

“So if she isn’t your girlfriend, does that mean you’re awkward, oblivious, paranoid, or gay?” Vincent-don’t-call-me-Vincent-I’m-Vince asks thirty minutes later. The two of them are tangled parts of a much larger whole, an attempt at a human knot that Travis resents the implications of – he can smell at least one other non-human in the bunch, a sickly-sweet tang he thinks ties back to a small blonde woman – and also resents the reality of: he’d assumed the icebreakers wouldn’t place him close to his roommate very often, but the guy is persistent. “Because I’m perfectly happy to offer myself up for your experimentation if you aren’t sure about that last one.”

“Can we maybe not have this conversation right now,” Travis requests. His voice is slightly higher than normal, but he just heard some person he doesn’t know squeal in excitement and he’s willing to bet it was based on Vince’s comment. Ladies nowadays have weird fetishes – a fact he learned thanks to Pan’s curiosity and Oly’s rants.

“Well, why not? Is it because you’re repressed?”

“We’re in public,” he snaps, instead of the actual response, which is that they’re strangers and he does not want to talk about this. “Stuck in this stupid knot.”

“Oh, right, this thing,” Vince seems to realize, and Travis watches in horrified fascination is the guy moves three times, maneuvering around people he chats with easily, and undoes the entire knot easily. “So can we talk now?” he asks, still holding Travis’ left hand, which he’d grabbed earlier.

Travis drops the hand the second the RA calls an end to the activity and leaves to find water. It’s a handy cover, and he can lose the roommate in what he hopes will be an easily repeatable fashion.

*-*

“Why,” Travis asks the room. It’s empty, he thinks, or at least there’s no one he can see, but it’s a mess. It looks like Pandora came in here like a whirlwind and then got chased by Oly when she was in a mood to trash everything worse than usual, too. Except he’s fairly sure neither Oly nor Pan have been here, but he’s been avoiding his roommate since the fiasco of their introduction.

The door opens again behind him, not that it had closed, and he turns quickly to come face to face with the guy he’s been avoiding.

It has only been a month, and yet the change in Vincent – Vince – is readily apparent. For one thing, there are shadows sprawled dark and heavy under hazel eyes that have lost the spark Travis remembers from the first meeting. Vince is tan, but now he looks a kind of washed out, like a vampire victim. “Shit,” Vince mutters under his breath, and as Travis watches, he manages to both draw himself taller and pull in on himself in one motion. “Sorry for the mess. I’ll – it’ll be taken care of.”

Travis stares at him for a moment longer. “Did someone bite you?”

Vince blinks slowly, and the next thought Travis has is to wonder if he’s taken something stupid: meth or pot or something, maybe, he hears those are weird on humans. “No. Is that an offer? Are you secretly a vampire?”

Travis’ eyes narrow, and he shakes his head. “Like I’d tell you if I was. ‘Sides, you’re the one who looks like a corpse.”

The roommate deflates, and sighs heavily. Travis almost wants to reach out to keep him from falling. “Family shit – my sister’s AWOL, like usual, and my parents are being dicks about it, not that that’s new. And the clubs I’m in are crap. I’m bored, man.”

“We’re not talking about the not sleeping thing?” Travis asks after waiting for the guy to add it in.

Vince, to Travis’ displeasure, laughs. It’s actually kind of nice to hear, warm and cheerful. Travis isn’t impressed. “That’s just the insomnia. It isn’t new, man, don’t worry about it.”

Travis is horrifically overprotective of the people he meets. It’s always been true: he defends humanity to his father, although that often ends badly and Oly’s suspicions that his old man is a terrible father shoot up whenever he turns up bruised. He would move the earth to protect Oly and Pan, and Ethan, too, if he would allow it. He’ll even pick a fight to defend a stranger in the street. And like it or not, he knows Vince, and although he can’t help with his personal demons, he knows how to treat insomnia. It’s what caused their semester of Pan on the track team, forced by Oly to see if she was right about exercise being a decent treatment for insomniac tendencies.

“Oly and me are meeting some people for a game of soccer,” Travis says reluctantly. “You want in?”

Vince’s eyes absolutely light up at the offer, and the nod is the closest he’s been to the annoying dick Travis met on day one in – well, a month, so far as Travis knows.

He refuses to feel guilty for it, but at least he can fix it.

*-*

There’s a dance for the people who live on campus late first semester. Travis finds out about it when Oly texts him.

Oly: Pan just came in gloating that she got me a date with that weird roommate of yours. She’s planning on continuing to fake me to trick him. Wants me to come along on the night to ruin his life, apparently. Travis: what? Oly: Oh, she was playing me to fuck with you and broke into your dorm – she has a copy of the key, sorry about that. Vince came home first, thought she was me, flirted like he tried when we met, and asked her to the dance. So. That’s happening. Travis: the fuck Travis: they’re both nuts, they’re made for each other Oly: Travis. Travis: I’ll apologize to pan with chocolate later Oly: Right. Oly: Anyway, are you up for smuggling me in so I can pull the ‘how could you’ routine? We can get burgers after. My treat, since we’ll probably have to dress up. Dad probably has a suit that’ll fit you. Trav: sure, I’m in Trav: how bad could it be

*-*

Turns out that there is something worse than Vince (and this is after they have, begrudgingly – at least on Travis’ end – started to get along) is Vince in cahoots with Pan.

Pandora is convinced that Oly and Travis should be together, and she shows it with passive aggressive commentary and infuriating asides. She has Travis’ number and ninety per cent of the texts the sends him are romcom friends-to-lovers plots, or links to date ideas she knows Oly would enjoy. Travis doesn’t need any of them, because he’d hate-watched countless friends-to-lovers movies in the hopes of convincing himself that telling Oly the full truth wouldn’t go badly, and because he has all of the date ideas and then some more bookmarked for ‘one day’.

Vince catches on way too quickly to what Pan is playing at, and now Travis can’t study in their room without being subjected to commentary and ideas.

“I think Morgan has a thing for the twins,” Vince says one day over the top of one of his engineering textbooks. He’s on Travis’ bed, because his own bed is an unmade mess beneath their combined laundry that needs to be folded and put away, while Travis is at his desk hunched over a borrowed laptop and grumbling about how the thing isn’t designed for left-handed use, with its trackpad aligned to the right of the damn thing.

“At least she has taste,” Travis says. It’s probably incriminating, but he will refuses to imply that Oly doesn’t deserve the attention. “She might have a chance with Pan, but Oly’s straight.”

Vince snorts; Travis gets a sense of satisfaction when he chokes on it. “In that case, I have a friend who’d fall in love with Oly in about ten seconds,” Vince goes on conversationally once he’s finished choking on his idiocy. “He’d treat her like an absolute queen.”

Travis’ hand freezes on the trackpad, and after a long moment, he forces himself to go on with his homework. “Anyone I know?”

“Your attempt at nonchalance isn’t fooling anyone. You sure there isn’t something else you’d like to say?”

“Like what?”

“Like maybe begging me not to ruin your chances with the girl you’ve been in love with since you met her in, like, elementary school?”

Pan’s theories are bullshit, is how Travis would usually respond to that. He doesn’t this time. He’s suddenly exhausted, tired of being teased and bullied for what hasn’t been a stupid crush since, yes, elementary school, a week after he accidentally stole Pandora’s seat when he was starting at a new school. He remembers watching Oly tear apart some jerk who’d tried to pick on Pan, and thinking that’s who I want to marry one day, and not knowing what to do with that information. “You know what?” he says instead, and it spills out of him: “You’re right. You and Pandora are right. I’m in love with Oly, and it’s the worst thing in the fucking world, because she’s my best friend and she’s so human, you know? She’s so sporty and brave and smart and she’d have to be stupid to want me as anything but a friend, and I can’t even tell her, because either it’d ruin our friendship or she’d feel obligated to date me so it wouldn’t be weird, or so it wouldn’t be over. And it’s the best thing ever, too, because Oly’s enough to remind me of why I even like people. You know, people say our family are cursed because my dad’s a racist asshole? And I’ve never been like that, I begged to go to school and then she was there and it’s just – it sucks, okay? Because I’m in love with her, and it’s the most amazing feeling, but I can’t do anything about it because it’ll either ruin everything or it won’t, but either way something will change, and I don’t want it to.”

Vince is silent for a long while after that, and Travis is breathing hard. He unpacks what he said, and his warm face – flushed red – turns white. He’s just told Vince he’s not human. He’s been told all his life to keep the secret – not even Oly knows – and he’s just told a guy he doesn’t even like tolerating the biggest secrets of his life.

“Dude,” Vince says at last, and Travis tenses as the guy puts a hand on his arm. “It sounds like you could use a drink.” He sidesteps the entire episode of word vomit, skips the psychoanalysis and judgement in favour of cutting right to what Travis could actually benefit from, even if they aren’t quite old enough to drink yet.

And Travis – Travis thinks that maybe, maybe, Vince might have one or two redeeming qualities.

#ft. travis #ft. vince #ft. oly #ft. pan #kwrites #kwriting #kristie writes #kristie's writing #nanowrimo2019

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