lonesome devils row.

▶ noel siemens / 31 / data analyst

overview.

headcanons.

relationships. (coming soon)

// 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫 for anyone !!

sitting down to dine after the red carpet, amun could still feel his knees shaking slightly. now, he was not camera shy by any means. how could he be, when he had been married to a man who instinctively gravitated towards the front row in group photos, despite being the tallest of the bunch? but he’d never been bombarded with so many questions he just couldn’t answer— about fashion, about moving to new york, about oliver. how was he supposed to know what the designer of his shoes had in mind when planning them? or what a specific detail in his suit meant? he just wore it, because his stylist said it would look good. leave him be. 

“did you know anna wintour personally banned asparagus from being served at the gala?” amun said to his seat neighbour to ease the atmosphere a little. around them the crowd swelled in the large hall, like waves crashing against a breakwater. the hum of everyone finding their seats and settling down drowned out almost anyone who dared to speak across the table. “that i can get behind, it gets caught in my teeth, but bruschetta? almost criminal,” he went on, “although, i’m sure whatever is served will be delicious anyway.” 

“do you know who’ll be performing tonight? i must’ve read it somewhere but it’s escaped me entirely.”

.

you’re not supposed to be here. 

it’s cornell all over again. it’s acord. it’s the literary symposiums rico sometimes drags him along to so he’s not the only miserable one in the room. noel’s trying to enjoy himself, he really is, but all he feels is this – otherness, this inexplicable sense of guilt over sharing the same space with people whose reputations precede them in the world of art and fashion and media and then there’s him, data boy noel, attending a fucking charity gala in crocs and an off-the-rack suit from jos. a. bank because the elite actually felt like being charitable this year and extended admittance to plebians like him, and god, he’s not supposed to be here. you think he doesn’t know that? he fucking knows. he is quite literally drowning in self-awareness, here.

blue eyes snap to the man (an athlete? of the english football persuasion, perhaps? he looks familiar and noel cannot, for the life of him, place why) sitting beside him, refocusing. “up until a few years ago, i used to think bruschetta and prosciutto were the same thing,” noel blurts out. that has absolutely nothing to do with anything he just said, you dumb fuck. you fool. he laughs, brushes a thumb over his eyebrow. “sorry, i’m – yeah, i don’t know. imagine eminem comes out and just starts rapping about, like, income inequality as we feast on caviar and ox dick with our overpriced silverware in our overpriced clothes.”

aaand he is shutting up now, locking all of his stupid thoughts inside his stupid brain to never be heard again.

closed starter for: @dcvilsrow

where: at the met gala, inside the exhibit

“No, no, no, no…” Sabrina repeated the word over and over sounding more like an engine revving up than a human. Her accent and deep tone didn’t help the imitation one bit. “…It’s ghastly in the wr-” A movement she had caught at the corner of her eye made her stop. It had reminded her exactly where she was standing, in a room filled with the most powerful people in fashion and media. Her blood ran cold. The English woman cleared her throat to play off her critique, and turned her head to the movement. Her green eyes widened as she took in the person’s face. It went from worried to relief when she recognized him. “Noel. I thought for sure it was Anna Wintour.” 

.

“nope. just anna...lose. tour.” sometimes noel thinks he should be legally barred from speaking until his thoughts have been peer-reviewed by an independent npo. he takes a deep breath and turns his attention to one of the elaborately-dressed mannequins before them, cocking his head to the side. he knows he’s woefully out of place here (it’s been less than an hour and someone’s already handed him their empty champagne flute) and has no credentials in fashion or art, but still: seeing the vision, he is not. “dolores umbridge meets the lorax: coming to a bloomingdale’s near you.”

—

Lucifer glanced around, offering a faux smile at all the prying eyes before insulting Noel back, never dropping his grin or pleasant tone. “Maybe if you weren’t so poor you’d know that going all out is usually customary at the Met Gala. I would know, I come every year. I can’t say I’m surprised you showed up in crocs… just painfully embarrassed for you.”

.

“yeah, but,” he finishes swallowing his pâté – what do they put in this, anyway? horse liver? “there’s a theme, right? you could’ve come in a suit of spikes or, i don’t know, a gimp mask, but you chose expensive carpet and – well, it was indeed a choice.”

closed event starter to @dcvilsrow​

“What the fuck are you wearing?”

.

“i could ask the same of you. you look like a game of thrones character wandered into CBGB.” and what, pray tell, is punk rock about game of thrones? at least his crocs have safety pins in them.

      ❝   they     ―     what  now  ?  ❞   did  she  just  hear  correctly ?  while  she  knew  some  rather  uncommon  facts  about  cats since  these  little  ball  of  fluff  were  her  little  happiness, she  certainly  had  never  heard  that  one.  and  the  thought  alone  sent  a  shiver  down  her  spine.  ending  up  on  the  menu for  cats  certainly  wasn’t  how  she’d  expect  her  death  to  be like.  ❝   do  i  want  to  know  where  you  read  that  again ?  are  you  entirely  sure  this  is  true  ?  i  just…  i can’t...  ❞   greer  looked  towards  the  few  cats  gathering on  the  ground,  and  she  just  simply  couldn’t  imagine  them starting  to  gnaw  on  her  petite,  small  body.

      quickly,  she  shook  her  head,  wanting  to  get  rid  of  that imagination  as  quickly  as  it  came.  no,  thank  you.  no  thinking  about  ending  up  as  cat  food.  instead  she  carefully listened  to  his  words,  and  she  pressed  her  lips  into  a thin  line,  a  sigh  rolling  over  her  tongue.  ❝   i couldn’t  imagine  anyone  better  than  you  ❞ ,  she  admitted while  holding  out  some  treats,  which  pen  pen  seemed  to quickly  steal  before  anyone  else  got  to  them.  but  greer’s focus  was  entirely  on  noel.  ❝   please  don’t  belittle yourself.  if  anyone  can  take  care  of  one  of  them,  or  of more,  it’s  you.  you  are  making  them  feel  loved,  after  all.  ❞

.

“no, i’m not trying to, like – ” he laughs, a humorless puff of air. “this isn’t my cry for sympathy or anything, i’m just...i’m a solitary being. like a wolverine.” the animal, not the hot hugh jackson character. obviously. that’s why he gravitates towards cats: there’s a mutual understanding there, noel provides them with food and they eat the food and then continue on their merry ways, chasing rats and banging all the other alley cats and...who knows. whatever else it is stray cats in queens do when people aren’t watching. nobody’s looking to him to keep them alive, and it’s for the best, because he couldn’t. he barely knows how to keep himself alive, most days.

Yeah, fair enough, he never cared much to ask. Though, in his defense, he was very much to type to not want to hear about someone else’s dating life when his own was virtually non-existent. Certainly did not want to hear that Noel had found someone while he was spending nights alone watching reruns of Drag Race and getting angry when the rewatch of a season didn’t magically have a different result than before. 

Regardless, today he would be an active part of Noel’s romantic life. He was a man on a mission now, he was determined to prove that he could do it  ––  yeah, he had to make this about himself somehow. It’s how he operates. “The hair and the glasses?” Echoes the writer, his judgemental gaze shifting from Noel to the woman in question. Part of him hates that he knows exactly who the other was talking about. “Okay, yeah, I can do that.” He downs the last of his scotch, setting it down on the balcony. “Wait, is it cool if I make up some actually interesting profession for you? You’ll just play along with it, right?" 

.

“what?” noel balks, forming a human question mark with his hunched shoulders and bowed head (it’s hard to hear in a crowded club and rico gets mad at him if he bends over, so. this is his uncomfortable compromise). make up a profession. this is why you should never ask an author to be your wingman, they’ll just use it as as a creative writing exercise. “what’s wrong with the one i have now? i like data. data’s the only thing i know how to do, i can’t just lie and say i’m a wine steward or something because i don’t know anything about wine except, like, white and red, and then i’ll just look like an asshole who lies to get laid.”

Had this kid just hijacked his claim to Gatsby? A frown crosses Julian’s features for just that fleeting moment of doubt, before he shakes it off as the extremely minor thing that it was. Though it was a bit unsettling that he wasn’t thought of as the evident Gatsby figure here, but he’d let it slide. The kid had done a good job, even if unknowingly, and Julian was far from a cruel man – he couldn’t kill off the other’s buzz. 

Feigning interest like the best of ‘em, Julian nods and smiles excitedly to the things Noel says – even if they tempt him to doze off and tune out for a second there. But this was good, this was the kind of shit Julian only pretended to know about, which made Noel an asset when setting up the field with these suckers. “Right. Great shop talk, huh? They looked into it.” Encourages the con-man, looking briefly to one of the targets that had gone off to mingle elsewhere. “You’re a good kid, Neil. How do your weekends usually look? I go to a lot of these things, and I think you really took to this. I’d be happy to make you my plus one again.”

.

noel’s smile falters ever-so-slightly, brows drawn together in naked confusion. neil? who the hell is neil? is he neil? are they using codenames now? there are some things, he reasons with himself, that he’ll never understand about the elite, and that’s okay. the less he shares in common with the likes of elon musk, the better. “thank you...josh.” he punches julian in the upper arm a little too hard. “you’re a good, uh. adult.” 

Even while actively trying to put his focus on another ( this case, Noel ), Rico doesn’t quite manage to strip himself from old number one. He avoids looking at the lanky man, eyes darting out into the crowd and mind stirring negative thoughts: this place was too loud, too crowded, too dark, drinks were shitty and overpriced, he’d be better off at home. Scratching the back of his head, he looks back at Noel in time to decipher what he was saying from lip reading and a vague understanding of the words. 

“Why not?” He asks with a frown, finding that his curiosity about Noel is suddenly piqued now that he has plenty of reason to divert attention away from himself. “Y'know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with anyone. Or talk about anyone. What’s up with that? Why don’t you just try and give it a shot tonight?” He tries to sound encouraging, but his tone fluctuates somewhere between deadpanning and well-meaning. At best, he’s distant. “I could be. I can turn on the charm if I have to.” Well, now he’s just defensive. “I’d rather be at home watching reality tv than be here, there’s a difference.” Cue to a determined gulp of his lukewarm beer. “C'mon, let me help you out for once. Who do you like in here?”

.

noel lifts a shoulder and lets it drop. “you’ve never asked.” it’s not like his dating life is particularly interesting, anyway. just a string of failed, short-term relationships and situationships with a couple one-offs thrown in for spice. hardly the sort of thing to write home about: hey, rico, how was your day? last night i slept with someone i met at a work-related event and ran out before they woke up so i could catch the train, and by the way, there’s thai on the counter. rico would probably smack him for making him think about his glorified houseplant in such an awkward and compromising scenario.

This wasn’t his scene. You could tell by the way he basically jumped right out of his skin when his companion deigned to join him again, coupled with an unbecoming ahhhh! that he would kill Noel for if he were to ever tell anyone else about. “The fuck did you come from? Jesus.” How he navigated through this crowd so easily, Rico would never fucking know. “Stop calling it that.” Sure, it had some ring to it, but he imagines if one of the candidates were to actually hear it, he might lose all his chances right off the bat. 

“Right…” It’s not that the options didn’t sound good, but his heart wasn’t in it. Rico lets out a laboured breath, reaching up to rub his eyes for a moment before his attention is back on Noel. “What about you? Did you find yourself anyone you like?” This was a valid strategy, deflecting attention back to Noel. Were it not for the fact that Rico never did such a thing, which made it uncharacteristic enough to make his attempt too damn obvious. “I could do the wingmanning for you first.”

.

mission failed, thinks noel with a rueful sigh. maybe he should’ve gone for someone more visibly older. someone with greying hair, at the very least; rico seems to gravitate toward those who could plausibly be his parents, which, again, should really be addressed via therapy, but it’s not like noel is one to talk. his friend group and dating pool are comprised almost entirely of people who can’t stand him but are too polite to tell him that to his face.

“i wasn’t...really looking for me,” he says, scratching the back of his head and glancing out over the room like it’s an afterthought. another advantage to his particular height: he can scope out nearly every individual in this bar without ever leaving his post. and as his gaze flits from person to person, noel finds himself picking out all the reasons he could never approach them: that guy looks rich. she’s too well-dressed. his muscles are too defined. the furthest he’ll get with brooklyn’s finest is a few stilted lines about the weather before they turn around and leave or pity-fuck him in the toilets because he’s tall. “also like, no offense, but are you really...the wingmanning type? you look like you’d rather die than be here, man.”

        ❝   he  surely  is.  a  teenage  cat  in  rage,  trying  to take  control  over  me.  ❞ of  course  she  was  exaggerating. while  the  cat  was  a  handful,  it  was  also  her  best  friend. he  wasn’t  only  evil,  he  surprisingly  also  gave  the  best cuddles  imaginable.  not  that  she’d  share  that  with  anyone. to  her  own  dismay,  greer  was  quite  a  jealous  person.  even when  it  was  about  her  cat.  ❝   if  he  kills  me  one  day, please  make  sure  that  i  get  a  proper  burial,  will  you ? and  on  my  tombstone  i  want  something  like  :  here  lies hades’  first,  but  it  won’t  be  the  last.   ❞

        meanwhile  pen  pen  had  found  its  way  onto  her  lap, receiving  some  scratches  from  her.  if  she  had  the  capacity and  time,  she’d  just  take  all  of  them  home.  she  hated seeing  the  cats  all  by  themselves.  only  noel  and  her  to look  after  them,  but  otherwise  abandoned  by  everyone  else.  ❝  why  don’t  you  take  one  of  them  with  you  though ?  i’m  sure a  joe  yabuki  is  waiting  out  there  for  you,  hoping  to  make every  single  day  of  yours  better.   ❞

.

“sure, if there’s anything left of you. i’ve read that cats will eat the deceased if they have no other food source. so – not their first option for friday night dinner, but they’re not above it, either.” and honestly? good for them. if noel dies in his sleep before a freak bus accident or global warming takes him out, his feline army is fully welcome to treat his body like an all-you-can-eat buffet. he imagines it’d keep them sustained for a little while, or at the very least, until they find the next lonely salaryman to harass for some chow.