better now;

“Cupcakes are three dollars, cookies are one fifty, and for the last time, no, this is not a fucking kissing booth.” She said while rearranging the goods on display, not looking up to see who had approached the stand. 

“Happy birthday,” he greets the moment she looks up, an excited smile on his face. Bellamy’s hands are holding out a present for her -- wrapped with the help of his little sister which is the only reason it looks like, good. He even stuck a bow on it. “Didn’t think I’d forget did you?” Okay, he almost forgot. His phone reminded him. But he bought her gift like a week after she told him what day it was so he'd be prepared for it whenever it happened. “Open it.” It’s not the greatest gift in the world, but Bellamy’s not the greatest gift giver either. It’s a simple frame with a meaningful photo in it. Even if he had to print the photo off Google since he’s never been there physically but it’s the thought that counts as they say, right?

Tilly rolled her eyes, dropping the extended hand before she fulfilled the sudden urge to facepalm. “I have to offer it to everybody,” She explained, very cautious that Bellamy didn’t somehow think that he was specially singled out and now considered a friend - although hadn’t Imogen told her that he wasn’t too terrible after the water bottle incident? Still her friend’s advice didn’t seem to matter to Tilly as she stuck the candy back in the boy’s direction, more aggressively offering, “Well? Do you want one or not?”

"I, uh, yeah. I guess I’ll take it,” he says, reaching out to hold the cane-shaped candy. It’s probably the path of least resistance or whatever they call it. He wouldn’t want to risk upsetting Tilly with a cup of hot chocolate in hand. It’s once he has the candy cane that he finally notices what Tilly is dressed up as. “Uhhh.” He presses his lips together to keep from making a reaction he assumes Tilly might not like. Instead he asks, “Was this like, a punishment for you or..? I mean, not that you look bad or anything. I just didn’t think Santa’s Village was your thing.” He doesn’t mean it in a malicious way or anything too, he’s honestly just curious. It really doesn’t seem like Tilly’s vibe. Not that he knows her well at all or anything. Other than she’s kind of a bitch and super popular.

Violet nodded, her smile still on her face, trying not to laugh as he almost butchered the pronunciation. Though he wasn’t completely awful at it. “That’s pretty decent, actually. Considering you’ll probably never have to use the word again, I’d give you an A minus.” She took the money from him and tucked it away in the lockbox. “Eating the donut will definitely make you get it better. I’m Jewish. Sort of. My family isn’t super religious, but when they heard there was a booth that wasn’t Christmas oriented, they basically volun-told me. Plus, any chance I get to make Imogen’s life a living hell is good in my book.”

Bellamy clicks his tongue but smiles at his result nevertheless. A- is pretty freakin’ good. He can’t remember the last time he got an A- for anything. “Volun-told,” he echoes with a small grin. “I like that. I’ll have to remember that one the next time my mom makes me volunteer for anything again.” But something Violet says makes Bellamy’s brows furrow a little, head tilting in curiosity. “Why would you wanna make Imogen’s life hell?” He asks, clearly amused despite his confusion what with the soft chuckles he gets out on top of his half smile that sits on his lips.

anne cant help the way her lower lips sucks in at that response, not what she had wanted to hear. after holding it for a split moment she let go again, shrugging her shoulders. it’s not a big deal she reminds herself. “ not yet, i texted him a couple times but hadn’t heard back, thought he might have been too busy over here or something. ” she said, keeping tone casual. maybe blake was inside, she would have thought he’d have the time to text her back then, but maybe his phone was broken or something. “ i was gonna have a poke around inside, if you can take a break for a minute and wante dto come along? ” she offered, remaining light in her tone. “ unless you were gonna try and do that captain america thing right now, kinda wanna see if its as easy as he makes it look. ” she chuckled.

Bellamy chuckles in kind. “Ah, nah. I’ll probably save it for another day. Taking a break and tagging along sounds more fun.” And less embarrassing because he’s definitely sure he can accompany somebody with no issues, but he’s not 100% he can rip a piece of wood in half without running into some problem or failing. Bellamy tugs off the gloves he wears to split firewood and tosses them on the chopping block. “Besides, s’not like people are crazy over firewood anyway.” Their stall is like super niche. He’s pretty sure more people prefer whatever’s in the gymnasium or snowman building. Tucking his hands into his jacket pockets for warmth, Bellamy crosses over to stand beside Anne before beginning to walk towards the gymnasium. “So how long have you and Blake known each other?” He asks, figuring that’s a pretty decent small talk topic since they’re going to look for Blake after all.

Tilly wasn’t exactly sure why she agreed to this, it had seemed like a great idea months ago but now in reality she was awkwardly paired with her ex for the whole day. But how was she meant to say no when Penelope had insisted she still take part? At least she was managing to pull off the elf outfit. “Naughty or nice?” She smiled wickedly, the red and striped candy cane almost dangling teasingly from her hand.

Was she talking... to him? Bellamy slows to a stop in his tracks, turning to face Tilly and simultaneously kind of regretting that he has a cup of hot chocolate in hand right now because who knows if Tilly might dump that on him too. “Uhhh, did you mean that... to me?” He asks, clearly very confused. But he looks behind Tilly and sees the whole set-up so maybe she’s just trying to be a good elf in Santa’s Village or something.

Naomi was pretty psyched that they were able to sell such an obscure book - now if they could only find someone who was interested in some of the political books her uncle collected. Naomi raised an eyebrow at his request - she didn’t know much about books at all. She held up a finger. “One second,” and immediately turned to her uncle with Bellamy’s requests. He took a moment or two to think and then another to find where the hell he put them. She showed him the covers. “Uhhh, well, that’s a pretty specific request, but luckily my uncle’s pretty obscure and has a lot of everything. Trainspotting which is apparently about seven people and heroin, The Wasp Factory is about some torture clock, and Macbeth is about a Scottish King. And death…so we’ve got some lovely choices.” She chuckled. “I think it’s a sweet idea. I hope she likes death and murder, though. Or heroin.”

"Wow, those are... intense,” he finishes. They don’t really seem like very Rory choices, but like wasn’t book-reading all about experiencing adventures you’ve never had before? Maybe she might be interested in the heroin story? Maybe? (Definitely not.) It’s super slip pickings but, “Uhh, MacBeth doesn’t have any weird stuff in it, right? S’just about a king? I feel like that’s safest so I’m gonna go with that one.” That’s one thing down. He hands over some money to pay for his purchases. "Have you like read all of these books or somethin’? Is that why you guys kinda wanna pass it on and stuff?”

anne hadn’t wandered over to the firewood cutting with the intention of talking to bellamy per say, though seeing as she could see who she was looking for, he might be able to provide answers to her questions. “ i’m not saying there’s only one way to find out, but, there’s only one way to find out. ” she teased in response, hands holding onto the little pocket warmers in her coat to return some feeling to her fingertips after playing in the snow for so long. “  you haven’t seen blake around have you? he was supposed to be working this stall. ” she said, making sure she didn’t sound as anxious as she felt.

Bellamy finds himself laughing a little at Anne’s response. “You’re totally right,” he agrees though. He should definitely at least attempt it. But before he could go on about his game plan on how to approach this, his attention is distracted by her question, growing curious himself when Anne mentions Blake’s name. “Yeah, speaking of that actually, I haven’t seen him at all today. Kinda lonely cutting wood without a buddy but maybe he’s just running late or something?” He suggests. He feels like Blake’s a solid enough dude that he won’t skip out on volunteering for something on purpose. “Have you tried calling? I would, but like I don’t have his number and also I’ve been busy like...” He looks down at the wood between them. “--doing wood stuff.”

“Is it that obvious that I’m not?” He asks, examining his sad excuse for a snowman. “I’m usually very competitive, but I know when something is a lost cause.”

"Yeah, dude. I don’t know what to tell you but things are looking pretty rough. I think that 5 year old over there’s gonna give you a run for your money.” He nods his head towards the child some feet over who’s managed to create some poor imitation of Olaf. Except chunkier. “Kids these days, dude. They’re like way too advanced.”

“I’m pretty sure. Don’t quote me on it. It might hurt. You could pull a muscle and I don’t know how to treat one of those. But if you want to, I’m not gonna stop you.”

"If I end up breaking my arms or something, you could always just drag me to the gymnasium and call out for a doctor. But thanks for like hypothetically being down to treat me if I get hurt, dude. That’s good lucking out.”

        “  yes, let’s see you practically break yourself in half trying to do something a fucking fictional character who was injected with shit to make him super fucking strong can do. let’s fucking see it.  ”  valentina couldn’t help her sarcastic tone as she spoke. clearly the other had to be joking, but who would she be if she didn’t insert her negativity in any possible situation ?? “  anyways, captain america is fucking trash. him  &  bucky ?? they deserve to be blown into oblivion.  ” 

Whoa. This girl was... intense. Bellamy can only blink once after hearing her whole spiel. Like, Emma says ‘fuck’ a lot but this is a whole new level even for him. “Uhhh, okay?” He answers, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to say. He actually wanted to try anyway in the first place so this works for him. He goes over the pile of wood, hoping to select a piece that’s not too wide and with a weaker structure so it’s easier to pull apart. “Yeah, I don’t really care about all of the opinions people have on the superheroes and stuff, I just think the movies are pretty cool and fun to watch,” Bellamy explains. “But totally, if you want them to be blasted to oblivion that’s like, a valid feeling to have or whatever,” he says, just to appease her and hopefully get her to stop dropping so many f-bombs. There were like, kids around.

“If you wanna try it I’d happily stand by to watch you give yourself splinters on the off chance that you can’t.” Jackie said before starting to think more on the Captain America aspect. “Who knows, maybe that’s a Chris Evans thing, being as he is immortally ageless. – Not that I care for anything to do with that dumb genre, but I can appreciate human art when I see it.”

"If I try and pull it off, you wanna double check my math homework for me?” He asks cheekily, not really meaning the suggestion at all. He’s just trying to throw it back to that one time he and Jackie were partnered in class for a worksheet. “Human art, huh?” Bellamy thinks he likes the sound of that. He thinks of Imogen when she says it. “I mean, personally I think Gamora and the chick with the magic red stuff’s hotter, but Chris Evans is cool too. He totally inspired me to try and get more Dorito-shaped.” 

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure Chris Evans actually did do that. At least that was the rumor that was going around back when that movie came out. I think you’d need to work out a bit more before you could pull it off, though. You have nice arms, but you’re no Captain America.”

"Seriously?” Dude, that’s hardcore. That probably means the real answer is like Google-able. Bellamy is extremely tempted to get his phone out to find out. “Uh thanks? And you probably have a point. But it wouldn’t hurt to do a test run, right? I mean, I don’t have this much random wood sitting around at home. Seems like a now or never kind of experiment.”

“If you’re gonna attempt to go from Clark Kent for Halloween to Steve Rogers for Christmas, let me know. I soooo wanna video tape this shit.” There was a light teasing undertone to Tessa’s words as she approached Bellamy. “Though if you’re trying to find your superhero alter ego, I’d go with Chase Stein for you… Just seems like a good fit to me for some reasons. You got the look.” 

“Heck yeah, I mean, I’m not gonna dress up or anything, but I totally wanna try this,” Bellamy shares, holding a chunk of wood in his hands. He’s thinking he has to cut the piece of wood part-way through first, have a place for his fingers to fit into before ripping it in half. “Chase Stein? Who the heck is that?” Tess throws a lot of superhero names at him, he loses track. “Also, speaking of videotaping shit, you’re going to have something fun to film the next time we meet up to practice,” he tells her with a cheeky half-smile, just barely able hold in what he’s got in store for her.

Violet gave him a reassuring smile as he approached the stall. She knew that there were many parts of the experience that could be intimidating or scary. Imogen, Hebrew, Imogen… but at the same time, she was there to prove that didn’t need to be the case, so she waved Bellamy over with a smile that even almost reached her eyes. “You’ll love them, I promise. – And they’re sufganiyot. So… repeat after me. Soof, like roof with an S… gani… oht.” She paused between each syllable for him to repeat it too. “Though Jewish jelly donut also works.”

"Suf-gani-yot?” He does his best to repeat after her. And it’s not totally awesome. There’s lots of chatter around them and stuff, and he’s not the best at listening even in a quiet room. “I feel like I just totally butchered that,” Bellamy admits with a small laugh. “Sorry. Maybe eating the donut will help me get it better,” he says in jest, cheeky smile on his lips as he hands her a bill for said donut. “So, how’d you get into volunteering for this booth? Just super into donuts, or are you like Jewish or?”

“Ennui. It’s a word of French origin meaning: a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.” Rory stated matter-of-factly. It was a word that frequented her vocabulary and also one she’d grown up hearing used quite often. She sometimes forgot not everyone was familiar with the term. “As for the dish yer describing, I cannae say I’m familiar enough with Japanese cuisine to know what it is yer referring to. “ The extent of her knowledge of Japanese cuisine was sushi. And she’d never tried sushi. “Charlotte more or less is just there if I need her for anything; but in all honesty, she’s taken more on a role that’s a cross between a maid and a personal nurse… Oh, and a personal shopper too.” The Batman reference went right over the Scot’s head. She sorta knew who Batman was; but she had no idea who Alfred was. Or Bruce Wayne. As far as superheroes went, she was only really familiar with Superman, aka Clark Kent; and that was because of Bellamy’s Halloween costume and the fact that Orion used to like Superman when they were small. “A Bob trying to be a Bruce?” She couldn’t help the laughter that escaped her lips at that description. It was ridiculous. “Um… no. Robert I, more commonly known as Robert the Bruce, was the King of Scots from 1306 until his death in 1329. And Bruce comes from the Bruce dynasty, or, uh, clan.”

He’s never not impressed by how totally ‘Rory’ Rory is sometimes. Sometimes the fact that she’s so Scottish takes so much of his view of her that he kind of overlooks how totally smart she is. And she’s super smart. Like super. Like dictionary smart. Wikipedia-level intelligence almost. “You know, my friend Emma probably knows, lemme text her real quick--” He fishes out his phone and drafts up a quick text to his best friend, sending it off to her with a swift tap of his thumb to his screen. “We’ll totally know in no time,” he assures Rory, slipping his phone back in his pocket. He listens on to Rory talk about Charlotte, nodding here and there where appropriate to show he’s paying attention. By the end of it, he’s almost totally sure Charlotte is Rory’s equivalent of an Alfred. And that’s so freakin’ cool. “Oh,” he noises. “Well, the more you know, I guess. I had no idea Bruce was like a clan name. Always thought it was more of just some average dude’s name. But that’s pretty dope. Glad you sorta got to enjoy yourself even if you weren’t feeling the awesomest. Super happy you’re back though. Were your parents super worried when you got sick and everything?”

“It is. If you’re Captain America. So I guess, not humanly possible,” Billie grinned. She wasn’t as much of a purist about comics as some of her friends. Although she understood the connection, she’d also seen every mcu movie about a million times. “Did you see the new Avengers trailer dropped?”

Bellamy returns the grin, giving Billie a look. He’s about to whip up some super dork content right now. “Okay, but like, wasn’t he human though? Just human with like science liquid in him that makes him buff as shit. I wanna try it, but I feel like I kinda need to cut it through part way first.” He inspects the piece of wood he wants to try this out with. At the mention of a new trailer, his brows perk up. “New trailer? No, not yet. I thought Captain Marvel was what everyone was wet about still. They have a new trailer out for another Marvel movie already?”