han !

"i know that because i'm six hundred years old.... and three quarters. been around a long, long time, and met plenty of witches. dated one, for a spell! ha. a spell," he shakes his head as he laughs at his own joke, tipping his drink into his mouth and sighing, dreamily. he expects a pretty horrible reaction, especially after that, but he's not too worried. at least he's not lying to his face. "i'm a vampire," he tells him, lips rising just enough to flash what look like slightly pronounced canines, but are in fact not in the right place. it's brief, fast, replaced by a warm smile, the same crinkled eyes. "sorry it never came up, darling. you got rid of me pretty quick, in my defense."

── as expected, niko doesn't take this news well. in fact, he takes it in the worst way possible, reacts in such a dramatic way that he'll be embarrassed about it later, will threaten drago with death if he ever mentions it. drago says i'm six-hundred years old, and niko assumes he's bluffing. he's making a joke, this whole elaborate act nothing more than a long-winded humiliation tactic, at his expense. he's ready to call the other man out on this, actually — his jaws are already parted, and his eyes are already set to roll — when drago continues, announces himself as a vampire, and... shows his fucking fangs. niko flails backward. sorry to whatever very expensive, very antique couch they're sitting on, but the drink in niko's hand is sloshing all over it as he fumbles backward, onto his back, then rights himself by toppling ( you guessed it ) into the floor. the now-empty glass rolls a little ways away as niko shoves up onto all fours, then to his feet, eyes wider than they were back at kelsey's trailer, even. weird magic is one thing. it's unbelievable, sure, but it's a whole lot easier to digest than the in-real-life version of lestat de lioncourt in the form of his ex-fling. his chest is rising and falling a little too quickly to play off, and his pupils are blown like he just did a line. or two. "a vampire." he repeats the words, not sure why he's still standing in drago's living room, and hasn't bolted out the door. there's something in the drink he'd been given, he thinks. spiked. drago spiked his drink with something hallucinative. "six hundred... no, there's no fucking way, no." he is now pacing, something niko has probably never done, not in his twenty-nine years of life. he's pacing, a safe distance from the man with the fangs, pulse hammering in his neck. finally, he stops, eyes back on drago, blonde strands swaying over his eyes as his head shakes. "i don't believe you."

HAVANA ROSE LIU as shai in lurker (2025)

she's been avoiding as much eye contact as she can manage without coming across as dismissive or disrespectful but now, with his expression twisted into one of disappointment and heartbreak, dara finds it impossible to look away. her punishment, maybe, for keeping distance between them. worse is that he keeps going and, even in the face of her rejection, he seems so sure that dara hesitates. "— and if it didn't work? if things ended poorly and we weren't friends anymore or even in each other's lives after it was all over.... you'd be able to live with that?" she tries, briefly, to imagine a world without him in it and retreats from the nightmare immediately.

── "i wouldn't... i'd never let that happen, you have to know that." sutton looks as earnest as he ever has, standing at her door, forcing his eyes to stick to dara's face rather than drop away, to the cement between his feet. "even if it didn't work out, or it ended badly, i'd always want you in my life. always, even if we're just—" he gestures between them now, "—this. even if we went back to this, to just friends." his head is already shaking, though, knowing he shouldn't put up a fight. she's right; keeping things like this, as they are, is safer. it makes more sense. "...and, honestly, if it meant i'd get to be with you, even for a little while? yeah, i think i could live with that." this is a sappy thing to say, over the top for someone like sutton, but it's the truth.

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rhett let out a humorless laugh, one hand dragging through rain damp hair while he looked at her like she was actively shortening his lifespan. “yeah, maybe you could’ve handled it up front.” his jaw tightened briefly afterward, blue eyes flicking away for half a second. “but finishin’ it?” he shook his head once, tone coming off slick. because that was the part he didn’t let himself think about. didn’t think about when he stepped in without hesitation. didn’t think about when he saw somebody putting their hands on riley. welcomed or not, it already made something ugly knot in his chest. tonight it wasn’t welcomed, and rhett moved before his brain had the chance to catch up. “i wasn’t exactly interested in findin’ out.” the tension lingered for another second before his gaze settled back on her, still fixed on her with the same stubborn focus as ever. “and for the record, i know you can throw a punch.” a crooked smirk tugged briefly at his mouth. “i’ve spent half my time pullin’ you outta fights you swore you had under control.” then she held out her hand. rhett’s expression shifted immediately. he looked down at her open palm before finally surrendering his injured hand with a sigh, letting his battered knuckles settle against hers. “there she is.” the tease landed quieter now. “was wonderin’ how long it’d take before you stopped yelling at me and started worrying about me instead.”

── he isn't wrong. riley has always been too sharp-mouthed for her own good, too hot-headed, always eager to pick a fight and then... not be able to finish it without some help. she'll call out creeps at bars, dump drinks down shirts, even throw a punch or a kick if necessary, though the latter is usually accompanied by rhett's arms locked around her middle and hauling her out of the building before she can get herself killed. he seems keen on keeping up that series of events, despite the explosive breakup they'd had six weeks ago, the one that ended in riley, crying angry tears, storming out his backdoor and not coming back. yet here he is; here they both are, rhett lifting busted knuckles to drop his hand into hers, riley instantly frowning at the state of the split skin. "i don't like worrying about you," she complains as she shifts her grip to take ahold of his wrist, instead, pulling him along further inside. "just... sit." she orders as she goes about finding something to clean him up with, eventually settling on a hopefully-clean rag and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. she drags up her own chair to sit close to his, facing him, situated between his parted knees. "i hope this stings," she says, but doesn't mean it, as she douses the rag with alcohol and then gently presses it to his knuckles.

nesta didn't mean it though - they were already getting up from behind the front desk, reaching out for the keys that she was expecting. "you owe me though." their eyes linger on his, outstretching the fingers on their hand even further in annoyance when he doesn't hand them over immediately. "you have like ten seconds before i make you order me food then kick you out."

── "don't act like you're not happy to see me." here's the thing: niko is a mechanic. niko runs his own garage, his own home-based auto shop, just across town. nesta is technically his competitor, and he technically has all the skills he need to fix the truck himself... he just doesn't want to. not when he has the option of driving it a little further east and dropping it off here, instead, giving him the excuse of hanging around while nesta works. way more fun. way better than getting his own hands dirty for a change. and it isn't that he's lazy ( his job is the one area of his life where that isn't true, as a matter of fact ), he'd just rather be here. "alright, alright," he whines a little as he fishes the keys out of his pockets and drops them into their waiting palm, head lolled to the side. "i owe ya, alright, i'm good with that. what do i owe ya?" this is asked coyly, as nesta leaves the desk and heads for the truck outside, niko a few paces behind, calling after them. "be creative."

this isn't exactly his idea of a good time either ⏤ but they're stuck and panicking isn't going to get either of them out of here any faster. julian wouldn't describe himself as the most laid back guy but he likes to think he (generally) handles stress pretty well. still, there are quite a few comments on the tip of his tongue, which he physically bites to keep them from spilling out. reminds himself that the other is freaked out and now is not the time to poke a little fun at how jumpy he seems. but eventually not even that works, and he wonders if maybe there's something wrong with him for not being more concerned about the situation. "that's a hell of a first question there, buddy," he cracks a smile, but extends a hand all the same, "julian, one-oh-four." there's a beat of silence as he thinks about his own question. "what's the first job you ever wanted to have when you were a kid?" he asks before leaning in, lowering his voice, "that's how you play, by the way."

── there's some new redness to carmen's face, admittedly. he'd blame it on the fear, if you asked; a good part of it is due to fear, genuinely, but the rest... is from the twin jabs julian, his apparent hall-neighbor, gives him. he smiles a sheepish, goofy smile and raises a hand to wipe a sweaty palm over the back of his neck, throat clearing. "well, yeah... yeah, i was just, you know. warming you up." his shoulders shrug, before his brain manages to register julian's return question, and his eyebrows raise. "oh, easy, race car driver." and now he's gonna ramble, because that's what happens when you get carmen cruz nervous and allow him the space to talk. "i had a little uniform and everything, and one of those, uh... those kid cars? those battery-powered ones, i had a blue corvette one of those, used to do loops in the yard with my sisters." he's grinning, so julian's tactic at calming him down is apparently doing its job. "...if you could change any one thing about your life for a day, what would it be?" it's clear he's trying to redeem himself, here, with this follow-up question.

"...you don't have to stay." he blurts this out, the words forced out of the side of his mouth, paired with an uncomfortable grunt and a just pitiful expression on his face, brown eyes leering up at his the-one-that-got-away from under his eyebrows. "i'm sorry, okay? i don't even — i don't even remember putting you down." he does, actually. and he'd done it because back then, they were the only person who understood how horrifically triggered his paranoia gets in a hospital setting, the only one he trusted to help him through it, if something like this happened. now, all's he's got is a boyfriend who sent him to voicemail when he tried to call him after waking up — and, honestly, told him last week that he didn't give a shit if they broke up. at least his sister answered, least she's taking care of the kids. "i'm fine. get that quack in 'ere on your way out. i'm gonna get discharged, now." he is not.

── "you'll be lucky if you're discharged by tomorrow, champ." niko is sat in the visitor's chair to the left of the hospital bed, which is where he's been since he got the call, for the record. it was a lot like a scene out of a movie, really: he was working, flat on his back under the tires of an old pick-up, when his phone had started buzzing. he almost ignored it, not one to answer unknown numbers, but on the off chance it was his sister, or benji, he braved the accept button. he'd sat up so quickly that he'd thunked his head on the underside of the truck, shoving himself out and scrambling to his feet. he hadn't given much preamble to his co-workers, to his boss, nothing more than a rushed "i gotta go," before he'd torn out of the parking lot on two wheels. that's the kind of reaction regan lafaye still gets from him on a bad day, so imagine a good one? and he's been sitting here, in this chair, ever since. through regan waking up and blinking bleary eyes, through an explanation that he'd been the emergency contact, even after all this time had passed. not that much had changed, really, not on niko's end. same dead-end job, same address across town, same bad habits. "it's fine. i'm gonna stay, so quit nagging me." matter-of-fact. he does, now that regan is fully awake and coherent, drag a long glance around the room, though. and, yeah, some sick part of him takes a little pleasure in asking this question. sue him. "where's, uh... what's-his-ass." the boyfriend. he means the boyfriend, whose name he's very well-versed in knowing.

FELIX MALLARD as Marcus Baker Ginny & Georgia 3.03 "Friends Can Dance"

after giving it a cruel thirty seconds too long, just enough time to wonder if he's coming at all, his trailer door is swinging open, forearm braced onto the frame, obnoxiously tall body tipping down so that his eyes meet hers on her level, eyebrows shot up. "what'd he do this time, princess?" cheek pressing into the wood his face is rested against, kelsey taps his fingers, tilts his head in faux-sympathy. her boyfriend's so useless that he might as well be a piece of wet cardboard — which, kelsey's happy to tell her, if the patronizing look in his eyes and sound of his voice isn't doing it well enough. she's here because he's better. they both know it. blocking the way in with his leg, ankle pressed to the other side of the frame, he makes it clear he's not going to make this easy for her. "missed a date? anniversary? burnt dinner? talking to some other girl? just plain, ole, couldn't get it up? he looks like he's got whiskey dick. couldn't be me." literally — it couldn't. the beauty of removable cocks, right? "tell me all about it."

── it works, this little plan of his. the hanging up, the waiting thirty seconds to strike a little worry into her that he won't be interested this time, that he's done being her last number dialed. even as well as she knows kelsey by now, as much time as they've spent in each other's company ( albeit, not doing much talking ), she should've been able to call his bluff. she doesn't, though, and when she hears the door click before it's swinging open to reveal his frustratingly smug face. she listens to his questions without placating him with an immediate answer, anticipating him moving aside and letting her in, and then... he doesn't. it's enough to bring her arms to cross over her chest, phone tucked back into the bag on her shoulder. "it is possible for me to just want to hangout with you, you know? without being mad at ryan?" which is the wet carboard's name: ryan. but, of course, kelsey isn't buying it. he just stands there, expectant, tipped down toward her, and eventually... she breaks, expelling a breath in the form of a blown raspberry. "...he left me stranded at a party last night. happy?"

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