#hienous

and for my final offering have you ever considered shipping taissa and mikayla (perhaps in a 432nd verse)

"i can't imagine why," perry says, exceedingly sincere. his brow creases slightly as he looks mikayla over, trying to parse if it's a predicament she's unhappy with - after a beat, though, he feels uniquely unqualified to judge. he extends his sympathy regardless, the corners of his mouth softening; perry shrugs, and continues, with no small amount of caution, "well, any friend of travis is welcome 'round here."

baby does well to keep his tone neutral, void of any harbored disappointment and reluctant relief; it’s a dangerous thing to be sentimental, but apathy doesn’t suit him, so he feels it fiercely anyway, emboldened by a feeling of relative safety provided by the shades perched on his nose. baby taps out a rhythm -- keep yourself alive by queen -- and wonders if ace can hear what goes unsaid: i was worried that you were dead. he could’ve easily been, and baby’s stricken with the sudden fear that ace will die and baby will never hear; he’ll simply disappear, and baby will have to live with that, the occasional thought spared towards this man that he can’t even consider a friend -- he’s just nicer than the rest. baby withdraws into himself, tasking himself with finding a different song, reframing his mouth into a frown as if it’s a strenuous job. he hopes ace ignores him, offers nothing more than a shake of his head and a venomous rebuke; it’d make it easier to summon the hatred he should feel, the detachment he feigns so well.  // @hienous

he nearly starts to smile, but despite her permission, he feels the guilt wash over him, not just of his own self deprecation, but of that one person that is still between he and travis. mikayla's already sworn not to give away his location to nat, and now this just feels like more secrets she's forced to keep. he lifts his cowboy hat from his head, resting it against his chest. ❝  you're not mad at me? ❞ he asks before anything else. ❝  i know it's hard, not... telling her anything, ❞ he says, as if his relationship with mikayla doesn't matter to her as much, even though they've formed their own relationship beyond her. ❝  it's complicated, making you meet him, i know. just think he's going to be in my life for a while, you know? ❞ or is that too much hope for travis? ❝  so it matters to me, what you think of him. ❞ he tries to anticipate how she'll feel about it— if her own still-fresh bitterness with the end of her marriage, added to her loyalty to her best friend, will be taken out on perry, but he still trusts mikayla more than anything.

❝  you're, like, the only person in here who can pull off this look. ❞ it comes out awkwardly, an attempt to keep thing light despite everything sitting between them, but anything out of melissa's mouth would've come out that way, especially after she's spent years feeling like she couldn't compliment mikayla at all, afraid of the implications. ❝  i just mean, um— ❞  she clears her throat, because the correction of 'you look good' still triggers that fear of being found out, one she'd always been more careful with for mikayla's sake. ❝  hi, is what i mean. ❞