#maddel

So ever since I first conceived of these characters years and years ago the plan was that Ashley and Lake started hooking up before they were in any sort of relationship or even before they were friends, practically by accident or coincidence LMAO

So they end up stuck on this weird roller coaster where they go from being wary of each other as vampires & werewolves but essentially strangers, to hooking up out of convenience (and. Let's be real. Projection... Ashley "Vampire Fanboy" Lovell is very happy to think he may have stumbled upon a big scary vampire who wants to ravage him) on times when they cross paths in their line of "work", to then being put in a position where they're suddenly kind of... friends? Associates? And now they know each other just a little too well to be able to naturally raise the idea of sleeping together again, so they stop hooking up for a while... to being FWB who definitely aren't crushing on each other haha no wayyy to. A disgustingly affectionate couple (that last jump from mutually pining Friends With Benefits to an actual couple is the one that takes them the longest, of course).

The next comic I do will probably be the one to elaborate more about Lake's perspective, so I won't spoil too much here since you'll (hopefully) be getting to read about it sooner than later, but for now, I'll say that Ashley's intrigue in Lake as a potential werewolf-vampire ally is mutual, Lake's just... painfully awkward about it.

The first time they kiss and their first time together are the same night lol. The long and the short of it is that it's almost accidental 😭 Ashley (for very very good reasons, which I'm looking forward to showing you) thinks Lake is hitting on him, heavy, and he gets so swept up that he doesn't really question it. From Lake's perspective Ashley just kissed him out of nowhere so he goes YEAH OKAY, if this is what we're doing now, then at least this is something I know how to do-! So they both end up thinking the other guy made the first move... which is probably the only way it could ever get started between them hahaaa

As for feelings: Lake was crushing first, and also the first to realise that those feelings had developed into something deeper (and scarier?), especially when he gets worried that he might not be the only one Ashley is interested in (secret other characters... for now...) But I don't think it took Ashley long at all to catch feelings too, he just would have taken longer to recognise them for what they were, partially because he didn't want to complicate things. Basically Ashley would have fallen on the side of "it's nice to nurse a crush on someone even if you don't think it will go anywhere. This is my little candle I will shelter from the wind simply because it's warm and bright" while Lake was on the side of "being close but never close enough is fucking miserable and agony... but it's better than not being around him"

To be honest there's a significant period where I think both of them know, to some degree, that the other person has deeper feelings for them, too, but then it becomes an issue of logistics. They both feel like trying to take the relationship further might put the other party in an awkward position; how do you confess to an immortal undead vampire who, if you didn't break up, would be committing to either watching you die or potentially spending eternity together? As the immortal vampire, how do you put that burden on someone, especially someone with a lot of political and family pressure not to be seen with a vampire? Plus Lake has general self-esteem issues, for various reasons. Once again they end up stuck in a situation where they both need the other to make the first move, but unlike when they started fooling around, this takes waaayy longer.

Basically I love to cram mutual pining into as much empty space of a ship as I can 👍

As for Sorrel and Maddoc (I know you didn't ask but I love them so you're going to get it anyway) - they don't get together until after Ashley and Lake are already a couple, though they met a lot earlier. They did NOTTT get along at first haha. Long as short of it is that Sorrel actually met Ashley through Lake a while before meeting Maddoc, and he loved that boy for how happy he made Lake and also for just generally being a nice and good person... and from the context in which he met Ashley and the things he'd heard, he did NOT care for Maddoc, lol. When Maddoc and Ashley ended up getting into an argument Sorrel basically appeared out of the shadows to grab him by the neck and that was their meet cute🫰

For a while there was a lot of mutual distrust between them because Maddoc is the biggest vampire-hater of the Lovell brothers, but being around Sorrel and Lake and others wore him down on that front pretty quickly. They grow to begrudgingly respect each other; Sorrel is very capable, experienced, and above all else powerful, all traits that Maddoc is drawn to - as someone who feels the need to protect others, it was novel and welcome for him to meet someone else whom he felt he could not only trust to look after his loved ones, but whom he believed was actually strong enough to pull it off. Meanwhile it didn't take Sorrel very long to figure out that Maddoc is intensely loyal, has a soft bruised enormous heart under the layers of hair and muscle, and that he was trying his best every day even if it didn't always come to fruition.

Also Sorrel is like three times Maddoc's age and Maddoc was really really really into that