V3rs - V3RS

On Gabe’s coffin bro I swear my character designs change too much 😭

sam likes to brag to darlin abt the og merch he has from bands they like that he got to see live during their prime

darlin wears them around the house n it makes him feral

AUGA REGIA [NeXus]

================

In honor of Percy’s most recent audio, have the boy bc he’s acc so pretty 🤲

Thank you Aman for fear mongering SWB into confessing 🙏/j/silly

ATTENTION EVERYBODY

Today (January 20th) is Penguin Awareness Day.

Please be aware of these penguins.

Thank you for your cooperation.

P.S: These penguins are described in alt text.

sam @ darlin’

Relistening to some of Vincents audios after all the summit shenanigans makes me wince a little bit.

The part in "Meeting Your Vampire Boyfriend's Maker" where Vincent says "you don't play fair old man"

And William responds with "and that is why I win"

Somebody call an 8th grade english teacher because i just discovered some foreshadowing

OR

The part in "Your Boyfriend's a Flirty Vampire Prince and ALSO a Cheesy Dork" when Vincent calls William a "Real Estate Kingpin" and starts quoting the Godfather to mocking William.

honey, you've got a big storm coming

“I love you so much, babe. And you know what I fucking love our life. like I know that’s corny and shit but I don’t care, it’s true, and I think it’s good to say it”

GET DOWN MR PRESIDENT!!!!11!!!11!1!!1!1!1

3 bricks were thrown at me back to back and let me js say I did not survive 💔

the world (it burns through me)

Chatper 21: Interlude (Freelancer, Sweetheart, Lovely)

Ao3 | 3.2k Words | Freelancer, Sweetheart, and Lovely's POV

Gavin asks, orders, begs. Sweetheart plots their escape. Lovely hates the waiting game.

TW: Medical talk, injury, stitches, hospital setting, discussions of head injuries and brain damage.

-Freelancer-

You knew before you woke that you were in a hospital bed. There was a very particular notch in your back that only ached when you’d been laying in one for too long. Your body was sluggish in the way only painkillers could make you. You scrunched your face up, your hand twitching to scrub at the tight skin on the back of your head, but too tangled in wires to get there. 

“Well, well,” a low, tired voice sounded front somewhere to your left. You managed to open your eyes, wincing even in the low light of your room. Damien was sitting next to your bed, laptop open in his lap, illuminating his face. He looked exhausted, the glasses he only opted for when he couldn’t be bothered for contacts were perched on his nose, magnifying his dark eyes. “Here we are again.” 

His face was slack and serious, but you knew he was at least half-joking. You smiled, shifting uncomfortably. The gown they’d put you in was scratchy and sticking to your sweat-slicked skin. 

You turned your stiff neck and caught sight of Lasko, his back bent at an awkward angle as he slept, sitting up on the empty, undressed hospital bed next to you.. His bangs were hanging in his face and he looked supremely uncomfortable. You smiled fondly. 

“Yeah,” you croaked. The taste of alcohol stung in the back of your throat, which meant they’d given you saline. Had you been dehydrated? That seemed pretty likely, you almost always were. Asher had said you were bleeding, too. If you hadn’t lost enough blood for a transfusion, they would have given you a saline drip to keep you running. “Funny how that goes, huh?” 

“Yeah, you’ve gotta stop doing this.” He snapped. You looked over at him as he closed his laptop, slipping it into the navy backpack he’d been carrying since before you met him. “It’s not fun for us, you know.” 

“Where’s Gav?” You asked, deflecting. You sat up in bed, but Damien’s hand clapped to your shoulder to keep you down. 

“Do not.” He warned, voice dangerous. You knew you were already pushing it, that his anxiety, although different from Lasko’s, was often just as debilitating. He took a deep breath as you settled back in your chair, purposeful and slow. You watched as he shut his deep-set eyes for a moment before staring you down directly. “He’s in the hallway. Caelum has refused to sleep, so he’s got him on a walk to try and tucker him out.” 

“He should have stayed home with the kid.” You ignored Damien’s protests and sat up, running your fingers over the dressing on your head to try and assess the wound. “No use sitting up with me.” 

“Oh, shut up.” Damien sneered. “The only reason Hux isn’t here is because he couldn’t get an overnight flight back for less than a grand. We were never going to leave you alone.” 

You managed to get your hands on your chart, and tsked at the diagnosis. Moderate concussion, two inch laceration on the back of your head, four stitches and mandatory bedrest for two days. Damien gave you a sharp side eye when you tugged at the bandages and begged him to take a picture of the wound for you to inspect. It looked good, the interrupted stitches tied neatly across the broken skin at the back of your skull, and they had even managed to avoid cutting the hair surrounding it. Thank God, you thought. You didn’t think you’d be able to avoid the embarrassment of a surgery haircut. 

Just as Damien was forcing you to lay back again, his voice sharp and quiet so as not to wake Lasko, Gavin bumped open the door with his hip. Caelum was curled against his chest, almost too big to be held like a baby, his face tucked into Gavin’s neck to hide from the harsh hospital lights. Gav was cooing to him softly, soothing the meltdown you were sure had started as soon as Gavin had interrupted their routine to bring him here. As Gav turned, you could tell how exhausted he was. You knew this was hard on him, he’d made as much excessively clear the last time you were in the hospital. You remembered the look in his eyes when you told you in a hollow, tired whisper: “Don’t ever do this to yourself again.” 

“Hey,” you whispered as Damein stood to take Caelum from him. Gavin’s face crumbled a little. 

“Hey,” he replied. 

The next hour or so was filled with doctors and nurses asking you the same ten questions over and over again, inspecting your laceration, poking and prodding you and taking your fucking blood pressure over and over and over until you went insane. It was three in the morning, your kid was trying to sleep, and nobody was answering your questions about Sam and Vincent. 

It wasn’t until the last of the lot entered the room that you finally got your answers. 

William Solaire looked just the same as he had a few hours ago, just as collected and pristine and haunted. He smiled as he entered the room and dismissed the straggling nurses away with promises to oversee your dressing change. You swallowed the star-struck awe that was urging you to ask for his fucking autograph of all goddam things in favor of asking the one question you needed to know before you could rest. 

“Are Sam and Vincent okay?” 

Solaire gave you a withered, polite look before answering. 

“I will not talk to you like a patient.” He said. “I understand you attended medical school for some time, so I will speak to you as a colleague.” Caelum was curled into your side, little hand gripping your hospital gown as tightly as he could manage. 

“I appreciate that.” You said softly. 

“Samuel’s right clavicle is broken. It was a clean break, but he will be in a sling for six or so weeks. I’ll need your help to keep him in it. He’s a horrible patient.” Solaire smiled softly, thin lips pulled over sharp teeth, almost bashful. 

“Doctors always are.” You grinned. “I am too.” 

“No kidding.” Lasko piped up from the corner. 

“Vincent… we know less.” Solaire’s smile disappeared. “We are lucky you were there. Any recurrence of a traumatic brain injury is potentially deadly. The fact that you responded so quickly saved his life.” 

You blinked, looked away. You were uncomfortable, very suddenly, with the idea of saving lives. That wasn’t what you had set out to do. Mostly you thought you’d been trying to save yourself. 

“He is still unconscious. We’ll know more when he wakes.” 

When. That was an interesting choice of words. If you knew TBI’s, you knew that when was more likely an if. 

Damien and Lasko refused to leave even when you encouraged them to go get some sleep. Dames said it was because he was too tired to drive safely, but you knew better. He was worried about you. He was never this passive aggressive when he wasn’t. 

Caelum slept on your chest, his little breaths puffing against your neck as he fitfully mumbled phrases you couldn’t make out. Gavin was at your bedside, having taken Damien’s spot. His hand was warm in yours. 

“I was really worried.” He said softly after everyone else had fallen asleep. 

“I know.” You replied. “This isn’t how this job usually goes.” 

Gavin was quiet for a long moment. 

“Quit.” He said. It wasn’t an order. Gavin knew, outside of the few scant hours your schedules afforded you for alone time, he didn’t have the right to order you to do anything. He was asking. He was begging. 

“No.” You replied. “This isn’t the same as last time.” You squeezed his hand, worried he’d withdraw.

“Please,” Gavin breathed into the silent room, “don’t ever do this to me again.” 

There was the core of it, you thought, the core of what he meant to say last time you two had sat just like this. When you went down, you went down hard, and it was worse for him than it was for you. He’s skirted around the real crux of the issue last time, perhaps bashful, perhaps afraid to be selfish. Not this time. Gavin was a much more honest man these days, and he didn’t shy away from it. 

The little medical student in your head piped up with that warning you’d been told a thousand times before; Don’t make promises you can’t keep. 

“I’ll try.” You told him. 

–Sweetheart-

You’d tried three times so far to escape your hospital room and you were just starting to lose hope. Marie Greer had the uncanny ability to be everywhere all at once, most likely due to her hoard of attentive and traitorous nurses. Every time one of them brought you the medical-release papers, another had found and informed her before you could finish the laundry list of signatures. She was there before you’d made it to the last page most times, a disapproving pinch between her eyebrows. She always convinced you- bullied you- to stay. 

You knew about the ambulance crash almost immediately, one of Marie’s many underlings poking her head in your door to report; “An ambulance with the 10-19 was just involved in a crash. Three injured, nobody’s dead, Milo’s okay.” Short and succinct and leaving you with a thousand questions. 

Milo showed up an hour or so later looking haggard and pressed a kiss to your cheek. 

“You’re okay?” You asked, running your hands over his sides as he sat on the bed, careful not to jostle you too badly. 

“I’m fine.” He replied. “The rig didn’t get hit, just the bus. It was bad, Sweetheart. It flipped and everything.” 

“Jesus Christ.” You breathed. 

“Don’t bring Him into this, ain’t nothing holy about it.” 

You laughed. He reminded you so much of Colm, sometimes, right down the way he made any mention of God sound capitalized. When he asked why, you brushed it off. He wouldn’t appreciate the comparison. 

It was nearing morning by the time Milo returned from the waiting room with more information, David and Asher and Trouble in tow. The four of them crowded into your hospital room, lounged in your chairs and on your bed, and you developed the distinct impression that you were crashing a very awkward team reunion. It felt like when Milo took you to his high school reunion. Everybody knew everybody more deeply than you, and that clinical mind of yours ached to unravel every knot and string that tied them together. 

“It was Quinn.” David announced unceremoniously. His face was drawn and narrow. He was eating less, sleeping too. You knew how bad any given situation was because David bore the weight of each one on his body, his face. You knew that Christian’s old boyfriend was a monster because of how David’s face changed when his name was mentioned. You knew, when that fucking building fell on Milo, that it had been very close because David’s eyes told you so. He wasn’t a good liar and he had a terrible poker face. When something was wrong, those cold, dark eyes told you so. 

“You’re sure?” You asked. You had to be sure in your line of work.

“Yeah.” Trouble replied. “I saw him. Made fucking eye contact. He left blood in the truck, we’ll be able to use that.” 

“Good.” You nodded. “Who worked the scene?” You turned back to David. Trouble had the distinct vibe of someone who didn’t want to be looked at too closely. You imagined that it was difficult, being this vulnerable. 

“Ansel.” David replied. “Colm made an appearance too. At this point, Dahlia PD is looking for this guy too.” 

“They’ll interfere with my investigation.” You sneered. “Fucking cops.” 

“I’d prefer if the big guys with guns and ballistic vests were between you and this freak.” Milo grumbled, curled halfway around a cup of vending machine coffee. He had to be fucking tired to drink that shit. 

There was a knock at your door. One of Marie’s underlings who looked about as tired as Milo did. 

“Dressing change.” She muttered, waving the gauze pads as she walked towards your bed. You couldn’t move fast, but your hand snapped to your stomach with a speed that made you wince. “Later.” You snapped, cringing at your own tone. “Can we do it later, Dana?” 

“You’ve already pushed it.” She reminded you, pulling your bedsheets down. 

“Let’s give them some privacy.” David said, his gaze flicking to Trouble. 

David wasn’t a good liar, and he had a terrible poker face. Trouble was the kind of person who could read tension off of a body like it was a large print book. They’d had to to stay alive, of course. 

‘What?” They snapped, arms crossing, growing defensive. “What’s the issue? I think I’ve seen all of you naked.” 

“Can you just-” David huffed, “don’t fucking argue with me, okay?” 

“David-” Asher was on his feet. Milo angled his body to try and block you from their line of sight. Dana, for her part, didn’t seem at all bothered by the chaos around her. Fucking surgical nurses, always with the level heads. She peeled back the gauze over your stomach revealing the red, angry cuts that spelled out their name. Trouble’s eyes slipped from David’s imposing form to your stomach. Their face went blank and pale. 

-Lovely-

In the grand scheme of things, you and Vincent had moved incredibly fast in every part of your relationship. He had an air about him that had drawn you in from the moment your eyes met, across the floor of a crowded club with music so loud you couldn’t think. You saw each other every night for a week, had kissed the second day you knew each other and had moved in together within three months. It had taken him over six months, though, to tell you about his TBI.

It wasn’t something he was abundantly comfortable with. You couldn’t blame him, really, because he had had such a persona drawn up around him at that time, like a curtain blocking out blinding sunlight. You were drawn to that suave and swagger, that cutting smile and devastating voice and words that made your knees weak. But you fell in love with him when all of that fell away. 

When he came clean after a particularly concerning migraine that he was convinced was the aura that preceded most of his seizures, you were thrown into the world of the Solaires very quickly. 

William was kind in a distant, cordial way, like he was repeating the words of a script he’d spoken a thousand times. That part of you, the part that was weak to personas and performances, was lulled by his warmth. Porter and Alexis made no attempts to project warmth, in fact you were fairly certain that the first contact you’d had with Porter was your fist smashing into his perfect jaw. 

You were glad that, in the sea of stone-faced doctors and overly familiar nurses, Dr. Morgan Kyne emerged to guide you through the process. He was a fairly young doctor and the newest addition to Vincent’s neuro team. He was a researcher first and foremost, and had what William regarded as some of the most cutting edge, inventive ideas about neurological surgery of any doctor currently practicing. 

Vincent was one in a billion, a miraculous recovery from the severity of his injuries. There was a knot of scar tissue at the crown of his head that his hair refused to grow over, and from the size and jagged shape of it, you knew that it had been a wicked, deadly injury. If it didn’t kill him outright, it should have left him brain dead or greatly impaired. 

But he could walk. He could talk. He practiced medicine. He had a goofy, ridiculous sense of humor. His hands could do some truly sinful things. 

For him to recover like that again was so unlikely that you couldn’t bear to ask about the numbers. Instead, you perched at his bedside, a stack of addition worksheets in your lap that you weren’t grading. You bounced your lime green glitter pen between your fingers as your eyes lingered on Vincent’s vitals. 

His heart was beating. He was breathing on his own. Those were good signs, but it was far from a miracle. 

“You haven’t slept.” Morgan’s voice jerked you from your trance, your eyes having trailed the jumping light of Vincent’s heartbeat for so long they burned. You turned in your stiff hospital recliner to face him, back cracking as you did. Morgan Kyne was one to talk. He was a self-admitted insomniac and you could count on one hand the number of times you’d seen him without a source of caffeine in hand. He slipped a RedBull in yours. 

“I was grading.” You said softly, setting the papers aside. Morgan nodded before stepping further into the room and setting his own energy drink aside. He pulled a penlight from his coat pocket. You watched as he flashed the light over each of Vicent’s eyes, carefully thumbing open his lids as he did. You jolted up from your seat, trying to track his work. Morgan looked over at you through his thick lashes and smiled softly. 

“His pupils are even and reactive.” He said, voice soothing. “He’s looking good. We’ve just gotta wait at this point.” 

“You know I hate that.” You grumbled, plopping back into your seat. 

“I do.” Morgan said, voice lilting and soft. “It’s the hardest part of all of this.” 

“Tell me he’s gonna be okay.” You felt your body sagging with exhaustion, the spell of his beating heart broken, your energy waning. 

“I don’t like making promises.” Morgan replied. 

He never had, in your two years and change of knowing him. Vincent saw some lingering effects from his TBI. Absolutely brutal migraines, an almost drunk-like demeanor when he went too long without sleep, brain fog, trouble remembering things from before the accident with a great deal of clarity. Morgan was hopeful about the long term outcomes of his course of treatment, but he never made promises. He never guaranteed Vincent that it would ever get better, that he could even slow the inevitable decline as Vincent got older. 

But Vincent hadn’t had a seizure in the three years you’d known him. He had, according to Sam, not had a grand mal since he’d been recovering in the hospital and hadn’t had an absence seizure in four years. He was about as healed as someone could be from this kind of thing. 

“I need him to be okay.” You said softly. You pressed your face into your hands as the words left you. Tears sprang to your eyes even though you could have sworn you’d cried yourself dry several hours ago. This was so fucking exhausting. 

Morgan’s hand landed on your back, soothing and warm as it eased up and down.

“His post-op imaging looked good.” Morgan said. “He’s got brain activity. He’s breathing on his own. We have every reason to believe that he’ll still be Vincent if he wakes up.”  If. You didn’t like that word, if. Fucking hated it, in fact.

Ain’t he pretty

Not necessarily but specifically in character design it’s typically given to characters to give off a ‘soft’ appearance but also a lot of people have different beliefs on it

Idk I wanna give Darlin’ freckles, like I want a trait seen as cute and innocent to be tainted by the hands of cruelty 🤷