Whyyy am I sending you these rn 👀
🤥 - for my muse to catch your muse lying to them
There was something quite sterile about their hotel room that was going to be a sharp contrast to the house, and he had no idea how to prepare her for it. How would he go about explaining what his family was like? Loud was not a strong enough adjective, and neither was boisterous. Controlling. In your face. All too weak to describe the level of meddling that was to come. "They're a lot, but they'll love you," his father had promised him that he would speak to his mother. But he didn't really know how much that would do. His father had sway over his mother, but there were times where even the Heavens could not move her. "Especially my sister. She's going to lose her mind."
The drive was a little quiet, because he wasn't quite sure what to say, feeling a little nervous himself. There were things that he'd have to tell Faye eventually, which he knew wasn't the way. But she was different, and he was already breaking tradition with a girl who wasn't really from their world. That's what he liked about her though, and sure, in the beginning, he hadn't tried to find something serious, but something about her had stuck and he couldn't shake it, even if he wanted to.
His hand covered hers beside him on the seat of the car, giving it what he hoped was a reassuring little squeeze. He hadn't wanted to say anything and while her dress was stunning, he knew his mother would not feel the same way. It wasn't a lot of skin by Californian standards, but anything more than knee length was too much but his mother's standards. He brought her hand to his lips for a quick kiss on the back of her hand, trying to ease the worry that he knew she'd no doubt be feeling.
"There it is," the house loomed up ahead, past the gates that he had said his goodbyes to over a year ago. He hadn't thought he'd be back so soon, but the phone calls had gotten more insistent. He knew it was bad when his mother's phone calls became his father's. None of these were anxieties that he conveyed to her. And neither were they things that she necessarily needed to know either. There were so many things he knew that he had to keep from her, and it wasn't necessarily out of choice either. He had to tell himself that it had to be this way, because otherwise, he wasn't entirely sure he'd believe himself.
"Are you okay?" He asked, gently, not wanting to push the topic too much. He'd already asked a few times. Faye's reply was a nod, but he could feel the clamminess in her hands to know that it was a lie.
🍻 - for my muse trying to stop your muse from having another drink
It was one of those summer days when the day started off hot, and as a consequence, so did her temper. Everything seemed to bother her, especially her mother who had spent the better part of the morning telling her how she should wear her hair. There was something wrong with the way she wore it, apparently, wild and out, as if she hadn't run a brush through it ("What will the guests say?"), and Tori knew there was little she could say, so took the comments as they came. But it was hard to ignore them, mostly because she wanted to retort back with something about how she had been the one to bestow her with those very genetics she was now criticising.
"Okay, ma," she replied in a clipped tone. "I'll tie it up for the party," after all, what twenty three year old didn't want her mother telling her how to wear her hair. With her back to the door, as she lazily stirred a coffee she would deliver to her father in the living room in a moment, she barely heard the door open until she heard the sound of Nick greeting her mother, as he always did, with the customary kiss to the cheeks and a hello. She smiled politely at him, as if they hadn't just kissed for the first time two nights ago. As if all the looks she'd gotten from him across the room, and the ones she tossed back, hadn't culminated in a kiss that had set her on fire. No, she acted normal, like everything hadn't just gotten fifty times more interesting in her life.
Hours later, with hair pulled back and out of her face at the party to celebrate her cousin's engagement, she broke apart from the group that had gotten rowdy, with the rest of them getting more boisterous than she liked. Bianca was talking about sex, because of course she was, and kept making those digs at Tori, even though she knew much better than to talk to her cousin about things like that. But she couldn't ignore the little smirk on Nick's face as he heard, and the only logical conclusion was that he was laughing at her. Her last comment had been "shut up, Bianca, don't you have an STD to go catch?" before she left them.
Her face became pinched as she walked away, almost storming away, as she tried to decide who she was more angry with. It wasn't until a little while later that he caught up with her, and she rounded on him, in the darkness of the hallway outside the party. "You become such a fucking asshole when you drink," she snapped, but that was founded on nothing. She wasn't sure if that was even true, just trying to find some reason for his behaviour that didn't seem to match up to her expectations. Two nights ago, he had kissed her. And now two nights later, he was laughing at her. "If you want to kiss me tonight, you better stop drinking."
Tori didn't know if it was because of how she'd said it, or what she'd said, but she did not kiss him that night.
