(300 posts!!)
"This is why." Abel starts, rolling backwards over his shoulder to stand. "I am homophobic." Grace rolls her eyes, somewhat fondly, and retreats to the kitchen to wash her hands. She glowers at the cup in the sink but otherwise doesn't say anything.
Felix, on the other hand, is still sitting on the ground with a face as red as it could get. Mae's words ring through his head. Te quiero más, cariño. He said them in Spanish. He said them in a language none of his friends could understand. Felix's jaw might explode if he grits it any further. Shea walks through the door with Jackpot scuttling at her heels. She ruffles Felix's hair and usually he would make a very big deal about that (hair product is expensive, damnit) but he currently cannot do anything other than stare directly at the ground.
"Yeah, yeah, alright," Felix says as smoothly as he can muster with a shake of his head. "I'll see you tomorrow." And with that he hangs up the phone and promptly buries his face into his hands with a small scream.
(woo!)
"¿Estás bien mi amor?" He asks. His voice sounded cool and calm despite how he was doing everything in his power to not let out a chuckle. Whatever was going on on the other side, it sounded quite painful maybe. He wondered if Herrera was in some sort of boxing match and got topped by the one person who was shouting earlier.
The phone hums, telling him that the call ended. That was when busted out into laughter for what felt like an eternity. It was just a minute but still, he hasn't laughed like this in a long time. "Hasta luego, cariño!" He laughed before soon exhaling deeply. "Cariño." He shook his head. All of this is a complete train wreck, but at least he was able to get something out of it.
Damian grabbed his phone then plugged the aux cord. A playlist of David Bowie played as he tapped on the steering wheel before reversing out of the parking spot and drove away. Tomorrow, oh God. Is it bad that he is anxious over a shopping trip?
After a fair two hours of harassment from his friends and finally managing to weasel away from their questions, Felix excuses himself through the front door and to his small sedan. It's evening; the sun is going down. Felix prays that blaring vocals of whatever trashy new song's on the radio will be enough to drown his thoughts away, but nope. The universe has different plans.
Jackpot stares at him with beady eyes from the passenger seat, as if to whisper I know what you are into Felix's head. "No. It's–" Felix starts before promptly realizing that he's trying to explain himself to a ferret. "It's not what you think, Jackpot." The ferret blinks. "Okay, he just said, you know, I love you in a language only we could understand and he was probably doing it for the bit but why–" He cuts himself off when he hears exactly how high his voice is climbing. Groaning, Felix smacks his head against the steering wheel as he begins the twenty-minute drive back to his shitty apartment.
The entire way home, he's thinking–and not about anything he should be thinking about. When he tries to dream of poker, somehow Mae wanders into his mind. When he attempts to piece together clues, all that comes is the feeling of Mae grabbing his hand after his semi-breakdown in the car. When he goes to even think about what to eat for dinner, he thinks of the tupperwares that belonged to the detective washed in his cupboard.
He certainly hadn't expected this to happen.
"Jackpot. I think I'm screwed," he says calmly to the ferret as he parks in his usual spot in the tattered and torn asphalt lot.
Damian was not able to think about what had happened for a while. There were two energetic four year olds in the back seats as he stopped at McDonald's to get the three of them dinner. On the way back, Adonis and Mina were singing along to the soundtrack of Frozen before requesting for the Princess and the Frog.
When they got home, Damian had set up the wonderful hell spawns dinner on the coffee table then put on Adventure Time. Once the twins were happily eating, he was able to think through everything that had happened today. He paused after hanging his jacket up. Cariño. Shaking his head, he got dressed into a thin long sleeve shirt with a flag of Spain on it and black shorts.
He didn't walk out yet. Five minutes passed by where he was fidgeting with his hands. Then he stared down at them. Deeply sighing, he took a glimpse at the wedding band on his finger then took it off, placing it on the nightstand. Damian shook his head before walking back to the living room.
What had said during that call was just a joke. It was only a bit to get back at Herrera. He kept telling himself that while sitting on the couch. It was just a joke, nothing else. Damian was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't even realize Mina staring back at him. Looking back at her, he winked. "No need to worry, Appa is alright," He assured. In the back of his mind, he asked himself if he really was. Truth is that he has no idea.
(askldjfk we have officially hit felix and damian's "oh shit–" moment)
(time skip to the next day?)
(zkhklgazsd this is gonna be good)
(yeah sure!)
(swag i'll have something up soon laksjdf)
The next day comes without any sort of significance. Rhyda's lazily eating Fruity Pebbles at the countertop. She looks like shit, but Felix knows better than to tell her that. Wordlessly, he opens the fridge and grabs the closest thing to breakfast he can think of–leftover Chinese from the night before. "Good mornin'," he says to his roommate as he microwaves the carton. "Sleep well?"
"Fuck off." She drawls. Her red hair has escaped its ponytail; some of it is drowning in the milk of her cereal. Felix scrunches his nose, thankful that his hair is no longer long enough to accidentally ingest it while eating. "Go leave. Or something." Hmm. Hungover. The pieces click and Felix understands exactly why she was out so late last night. He doesn't want to think how she got home, but she's not dead so he decides not to worry about it.
"Lucky for you, doll, I am leaving today." He had sent a text to Mae earlier, asking when he'd be available for the best-slash-worst shopping trip of Felix's lifetime. Now, normally he would love to drag the stuffy detective around from store to store and talk his ear off but ever since… Well, ever since last night Felix has no clue if it's a good idea to carry through with the plan. Oh well. When has Felix ever not thrown complete caution to the wind and followed through with probably-terrible plans?
Somehow work is not distracting enough for the enigma that is Damian's mind. A little over an hour ago he dropped the twins off at preschool then picked breakfast up on the way to work. Rather than sitting down then eating, he went straight to taking care of everything from yesterday. He uploaded the audio file of the interview with Miss Clyde.
Anytime he had a sliver of a second to think about anything else, he just had to think about that stupid phone call along with everything else. In the corner of his eye, he noticed that chair across from him. Just imaging Herrera sitting there was weird. He covered his face with his hands.
His phone buzzed. Peaking through his fingers, Herrera's name was the first thing he saw when the phone screen lit up. "Oh my God." He went back to hiding his face.
It took him a while in order to convince himself to text the weirdo back. Usually he gets out around 5:30, but he asked the chief if it was alright to leave an hour early. The chief just said "yes" then went back to talking to another detective. So Damian just replied with "4:30" and then hid his phone underneath a stack of papers.
Felix sighs and fishes his leftovers out of the microwave. To ensure that the fumes don't make Rhyda sick and Felix therefore assaulted, he takes the carton back to his room. His phone vibrates on his nightstand. He will not admit how quick he was to grab and look at the notification. It's from Mae. and Felix absolutely will not admit how that makes his chest feel tight and his mind feel weird.
4:30.
Okay. Now Felix just has about six and a half hours to kill. Somehow. Huffing through his nose, Felix places his hands on his hips and turns in a circle around his room. The responsible side of his mind office supplies to clean it. The other, way more fun side of his brain tells him to binge some telenovelas. Somewhere in the middle tells him that he can do both, but then he wouldn't retain anything going on in the TV and he'd get distracted by the TV and then get absolutely nothing cleaned.
The time ticks by and soon enough it's 4 o'clock and Felix is dressed and ready. Jackpot is sitting on his shoulder. "Sorry pal," Felix says, sticking his bottom lip out. "I don't think the stores will allow ferrets inside." Jackpot has the audacity to look upset. With a shrug, Felix sets the weasel on the ground and twirls his keys in his hands. He shouts a quick good-bye to Rhyda–promptly earning an angry curse in response–and leaves the apartment. He texts Mae the store to meet at. It's deep within the strip, crowded by about a thousand other department stores.
Anytime his phone went off, he had a mini heart attack. His hand would instantly reach for it but he always pulled back first. This happened when his brother asked him about dinner plans next week. Then it happened again an hour later when his mother-in-law texted him about the twins. At one point, he was just staring at his phone like those characters in rom-coms, waiting for a text from Herrera.
Thankfully writing a transcript of the audio took up most of his day. By the time he had looked at the little clock on the corner of the computer screen, it was time to go. His phone buzzed. Felix Herrera. Seeing the name on his phone screen made him tensed up. After closing up shop, Damian hopped in the car. He tried to get to the store at a reasonable time. Ever since he could remember, he always has showed up to meet up with people or anything fifteen minutes before. If he was less than that or late, he would be upset.
Now Damian is feeling a wave of emotions that he has no idea where they came from. When taking the keys out of the ignition, he ran his hands through his hair. "Ahh it's been a while since I got a cut. Should I get it dyed again?" He talked to himself. He fluffed it. "Does it look bad? I don't think so. I think he will- Wait…" What the hell is he doing? Damian asked himself that all the way up till he was standing in front of the store.
Felix flips the nice sunglasses he bought not too long ago over his eyes as he walks down the strip. They're fairly simple: dark reflective shades with small golden accents along the sides. Expensive, subtle, just barely flashy enough for his liking. As for the rest of his outfit, he opted for fitting black pants, a black and gold pinstripe button-up (of course, the top four unbuttoned), three of his favorite watches, and fairly nice black boots. The entire ensemble is to make sure the employees and other customers know he's important and rich and cool and for no other reason.
Parking, per usual, was an absolute nightmare, leaving Felix about five-or-so minutes late. It might not sound too bad, but Felix is renowned for his punctuality. He has a reputation to uphold, damnit. He checks his phone, checks his reflection in the dark screen, and checks to ensure he doesn't accidentally run into some tourist child. After mildly speedwalking, Felix finds the store he told Mae to meet him at. The man is standing in front of the store, back turned to him.
Felix smiles and walks up behind the detective. "C'mon, we got places to be–" He says, a grin in his voice as he grabs Mae's arm and pulls him into the store. It's nice, obviously catered towards people who have money but want to be casual about it.
Waiting has to be one of the worst experiences ever. His stomach was knotted in twists for many reasons. As he stood there, he debated over which one was more apparent. Either Damian is dreading this shopping spree or he is dreading seeing Herrera after the phone call. The fact he is calling the event that happened yesterday "the phone call" says a lot. All he can do is be the same as normal during this whole thing. Deeply he hoped that Herrera would be the same old Herrera and not notice that he is being weird.
Before Herrera appeared behind him, he was reading some news article about penguins escaping a zoo. "Huh?" Damian was not able to process what was going on. His feet dragged along. "Well hello to you too," He scoffed. "Please do not make this longer than it needs to be." When he finished his sentence, he bit his bottom lip. Maybe he shouldn't have said that. Going shopping like this is not something he enjoys. Get in, get out, get going; that's how he does it.
Damian managed to remove Herrera's hand from his arm. Only a few seconds in and he was frowning already. Just like how he was yesterday. "I hate this…I don't want to do this."
"Stop being grumpy and a little bitch and it'll be over so much quicker," Felix announces as he stops in front of a very nice table layered with denim. This man is the Mae Felix knows. Not the one who called him baby and said I love you over the phone. Nope. Grumpy, mean, reluctant, stuffy Damian Mae. (It doesn't make Felix's heart palpatate any less.)
"Any specific colors you're looking for?" He asks, sorting through the different lengths and washes. He quickly stops his searching to look Mae up and down. "Orange won't be a flattering color on you," he notes before turning back to the denim. It's casual but upstaged, like diamond earrings with a simple summer dress. Finally pausing to grab three different sizes of grungy, gray, acid wash jeans and another three sizes in a slightly darker shade, Felix looks over to Mae. "Also, my friends play… hmmm grunge rock with modern metal ties so we have to find something to fit the vibe."
"Okay…" He waited for Herrera to look away in order to laugh a little. Damian used his hand to cover a small grin before rubbing his nose. Then he cleared his throat in order to help himself return to his "usual" grumpy demeanor. Hiding the mess that's going on inside himself feels like he's undercover right now.
Not wasting a second with the question, he answers, "Black." It's the first thing he can think of. Aside from white, gray, dark gray, navy blue, and black, there isn't much else to what he normally wears. Black is a nice color that suits him no matter what. Damian grimaced at the denim. The only kinds of pants he wears are professional ones, shorts, pajamas; there's no in between. The last time he wore jeans or denim was when he was in college which has to be around fourteen years ago.
He shakes his head. "Good luck. I don't know if I'd look like a normal person in clothes that are grunge rock whatever. I'm old for that kind of stuff already." Personally, he thinks that he looks like someone who came out of the Victorian Era. This isn't going to work.
"Black?" Felix repeats, voice piquing slightly towards the end. "Damian, doll, we gotta get more variety in your closet." He looks over to Mae with A Look. Felix ignores the fact that he's also wearing all black, but at least he somewhat styles it up with a little gold and exposed collarbone.
Felix rolls his eyes at Mae's hesitance. "I think you forget that you're younger than you think you are. You're what? Thirty-three? Thirty-four? My friends are also your age and theyre the ones making the damn music." His eyes quickly search the store before landing on a nice rack with mannequins modeling the garments posed in front of it. With a free arm, he snags Mae's shirt and drags him over there. "Plus, I'll make you look good. No matter what crowd you're in." Did he punctuate the sentence with a wink? Probably. Maybe. Yes.
"Would you be opposed to red?" He raises an eyebrow as he begins to card through the rack. "Ooh–Purple?" He finds a very nice short-sleeved silk button-up and holds it up. In his mind, he's already holding Mae up to a mirror, rotating dozens of potential clothing options.
"Oh the irony," He muttered to himself. Herrera is right: he really isn't that old. Sure his brain might be that of an old professor from the late 19th century, but in reality he isn't one. He sighed, "I'm thirty-four." Damian still feels like a fish out of water in this store. A lot of the clothes he's seeing here would never be found in his closet. Not in a million years. If you time traveled back, maybe, but now it's all just dress shirts and pants aside from the comfortable stuff he exclusively wears at home.
Does he really have a say in the matter? No, not really. Once again, he is letting his feet drag against the store floor. When trying to shoot a glare at Herrera, he stops. His walking becomes stiff. Damian looked away. His cheeks were turning a bright shade of pink. Jesus, it was just a wink. It was just a wink. Nothing else. Felix has done it a million times before. It was just a wink.
Whatever was being asked, it flew over his head. Everything sounds like tv static. It took him a minute to get back to reality. And when he did, he just couldn't look at Herrera anymore. At least for now. Glancing over at the shirt in question, he shakes his head. "No short-sleeves." He scans through everything in front of him. Randomly he picks a shirt, only to read everything on the tag.
Felix nods at Mae's decision, depositing the shirt back onto the rack before looking towards the end for the long-sleeved options. There's quite a few different styles and materials, but none of them feel quite right. He's been to his friends' concerts a million times. He's seen a billion different styles. Despite the odd, glorified garage band style they play in, music enjoyers from all genres have somehow arrived in the warehouse. He isn't too concerned about being perfectly in line with a theme, not as much as he cares about ensuring Mae looks at least decent.
Not that he doesn't look– Agh. Shut up. Felix shakes the thoughts away as he finds a nice black turtleneck. It's smooth and woven of cool materials instead of heavy yarn or cotton. Breathable, modest, yet still good enough by Felix's standards. He adds it to his pile wordlessly, along with a white one of the same style. "Damian–" He pokes the other man, engrossed in whatever tag reading he's doing. "I need you to try these on." He unceremoniously dumps the pile of clothes in his arms to the detective's before steering him towards the dressing room.
"Keep an open mind and don't say no to everything. You need to look like you're actually from the twenty-first century for once." Felix smiles as the attendant tallies the garments in hand before leading Mae to one of the dressing rooms. Felix sighs and takes a seat in the overly-plush chair across from a tri-fold mirror.
No tags are not interesting, but Damian has no idea where else to look. He has read the English and Spanish instructions on how to wash the shirt about ten times. It was for the same shirt that Herrera had picked up, but only a size smaller. If only it was long sleeves, maybe he would wear something like this. Or why not wear something underneath with long sleeves? The silk is nice though.
"What now?" He turned to look at Herrera, only to have a pile of clothed dumped into his arms. Most of what he was so delightfully given probably has wrinkles already. And he has no idea what is going on. "I cannot wait to try all of these on," He faked smiled, "This is so much fun." Keep an opened mind. Damian will do everything in his power to try. But as the attendant shows him to a dressing room, he looked over his shoulder and said, "Voy a matarte, estupidas. Lo haré."
Damian spent the first four minutes setting up a little system in the dressing room. He hung up the clothes on a hook and he placed his own clothes on the little chair in the corner. Then he decided to put on some denim jeans and some turtleneck. He didn't even look in the mirror. The moment after he tucked in the sweater, he walked out. "Okay…Here I am in….the clothes you've picked. What do you think?"
For the undetermined amount of time Mae was in the dressing room, Felix flicks through his unread notifications. After inputting his 12-digit passcode, he scrolls through his messages. Ignore that. Block that. Respond to that later. Oh shit– Felix pauses when he realizes he has about sixty-seven unread messages from the group chat with his friends. With a sigh, he begins to read through. Shea is screaming–apparently the plant she got for her and Bianca's first anniversary is dying. Abel, the resident botanist, is also screaming, but mostly about how Shea is a terrible plant parent instead of any actual useful advice. Grace is trying her best to calm everyone down, and Paisley just called everyone an idiot before trying to leave the group. Rhyda, per usual, is silent but is probably relishing listening to the chaos in silence through her screen reader.
He manages to catch up on all his friends' plant drama right before the door opens and Mae emerges. Felix sits and stares for a moment before standing with his usual flourish and approaches the man. Instantly, he reaches over to adjust the collar, very much not thinking about his fingers are brushing Mae's jaw. "Okay–" He says calmly before stepping back and looking the man up and down. It's simple, but definitely workable.
"I like it," he says after a moment of quiet, bringing a hand to rub at his chin. "We'll need another layer and some proper jewelry, but this is not a bad start." Finally, he looks up to meet Mae's eyes. "Everything fit alright?"
His weight shifted to his left foot. Damain stood there with his chin lowered to the floor. He fidgeted with his fingers. Standing in clothes he's trying on at a store has always been one of the most awkward experiences he has had since he could remember. Is it awkward because of trying on clothes? Or is it awkward because Herrera is walking up to him and the walls are closing in?
The walls just kept drawing in. He tried not to think deeply about Herrera fixing the sweater collar. It's fine. Somehow the moment dragged out into eternity on its own. "Thank you."
Briefly checking the mirror, he tilted his head to the right. Damian didn't know what to say. The question was simple, but looking into Herrera's eyes made it difficult. His jaw slightly dropped and he nodded his head. "So is this the one I'm wearing for the thing? Or should I go and try something else?"
Felix smiles and approaches the man behind the mirror. With his hands on Mae's shoulders, he smiles sharkishly into their reflection. "I do like these ones, but I doubt we'll find anything else worthy in this store. Don't worry, doll, I have a few others in mind." Already predicting his grimace, Felix steps back and shakes his head with a smirk. "I won't make this any harder than it has to be. Relájate cariño." With that, he steers Mae back into the direction of the dressing room.
When the detective's locked behind the door again, Felix flops down on the chair again with an oof. The attendant raises an eyebrow at him. Felix stares them down. When the attendant breaks the staring contest (Ha! That's what I thought!), Felix turns back to scrolling through his messages. Abel had finally cracked and given Shea some decent advice, telling her to move the spider plant into a semi-shade area and give it a thorough soak.
He decides to text Abel with do you get your jewelry anywhere that isnt hot topic? Abel quickly responds with fuck you. and then no why. Felix goes on to ask that he's looking for something new and Abel sends him the link to the small business jewelers that make about a million dollars from tourists a month. When he looks up again, Mae is exiting the dressing room back in his normal attire. Felix tries not to pout. He's going to miss the fitting turtleneck.
Damian sneered. Why the shoulders? Can't Felix put them somewhere else? He took one more look in the mirror before being forced back into the dressing room. Relájate cariño. A shiver ran down his spine. His shoulders jumped up as he was forced back into the dressing room. Those two words replayed, leaving goosebumps all over.
It doesn't take long for him to get out. He decided to distract himself of the train wreck in his mind by getting everything together. As he walked out, he took a deep breath. Everything is alright. The sweater and pants are folded nicely while he held them with both hands.
He wants to ask if this is it, if he can go home now, but he knows damn well that this isn't over. Deep down, he doesn't want it to be. Yes he is freaking out about the way Herrera is staring at him, and yet, he somehow does not want this to be over. He shook his head to himself. No, that's not it. He needs fresh air. "Ready to go?"
Felix nods and stands, exaggeratingly stretching his arms above his head before taking the clothes that fit from Damian's arms. He signals for the attendant to come take the remaining garments to reshelf them. "Ready whenever you are, darlin'." Felix smiles and leads him towards the register. The clerk rings them up and Felix pays with a crisp bill. The employee doesn't even look twice at the mint-condition bill. They probably see about a hundred of those from overzealous tourist shoppers a day.
With a bag in hand, Felix leads Damian from the shop and to the bustling Vegas strip. "Just down the way is another shop we need to hit," Felix says, leaning into Damian to ensure he can hear him. "If we find what I'm looking for, we just have one more stop and we can leave, cool?" He raises an eyebrow. Well, actually, if they find what Felix's looking for at the shop, then they'll have to take it to one of Felix's friends to give it another layer of spice that he's looking for. But, Felix can always do that when he's not in Damian's company.
Lost in his thoughts, he doesn't quite see the trio of children barreling past him. One of their oversized backpacks checks Felix in the side and causes him to momentarily lose his balance. Before he can absolutely eat asphalt, he reaches out to steady himself, hand gripping the detective's bicep. "Sorry," he mutters, clearing his throat and busying himself with cleaning his sunglasses so he doesn't have to look at the other man.
Damn that smile. Damn him for wanting to smile. Damn all the other thoughts trickling into his head. Damian followed behind Herrera. The whole time he stood there waiting, he had his hands stuffed into his pockets while looking around at the kinds of people in the store. At the sound of a bag rustling, he follows alongside Herrera outside. The Las Vegas fresh air was enough to relieve him for the time being.
He kept his eyes straight forward despite not knowing where they are going. Well, that is until Felix was slightly leaning into him. Damian tried to listen to most of what was being told to him. He felt a little bit happy when knowing that they have twoish more stops left, but he also felt something else. Anyways he is feeling a lot of emotions and it is something new every single second. "Alright, sounds cool," He hummed.
Before anything happened, he only caught sight of one kid zooming down the street. He was distracted by his father instincts and the slight fear of it being his own kids. Then he was startled by the feeling of a hand on his arm. "Oh-" His head snapped over, catching the sight of Felix's hand on him.
Damian frowned at the kids, watching as they kept on. After giving a head shake of disapproval, he returned his gaze to Felix. "It's alright," He assured, "Are you okay?" He put his arm behind Felix, patting the guy's shoulder. Stuffing his hand into his pocket, he watched Felix with cleaning his sunglasses.
