Hi all!
I don't have a lot to say here. Hope you guys enjoy this big-ass project that I am officially in the works of! Fashion Couple! Yes, this'll probably (key word: probably) be bigger than my Elemental re-telling.
10:30 PM in Headquarters...
It started off like any other night at Headquarters. With nearly everyone asleep in their rooms. Envy being awake for what felt like the millionth time in a row, Sympathy running dream duty since Joy began to trust her more to run said shift, despite Sympathy agreeing with Cupid & Disgust on that Joy is an extreme manipulator. However, despite this, they still had a soft spot on her. And as for Cupid? He was finishing up with Anxiety on finding more ways to make sure she's not as worked up as she once was. Him & Anxiety would grow closer as good friends during these sessions (more on this another time), after a reluctant forgiveness was given from him for locking Cupid in the vault alongside the original emotions.
"Right, it's getting late. I won't keep you here much longer… just remember that for that project that Riley's working on for English class, have her take her time properly. Unfinished business is no good business, as they say." Cupid said to Anxiety, thus adjourning their meeting. And yes, whatever Riley was doing for school was Anxiety's number one concern.
Going to how I usually write these things… Cupid's POV
However, on her way out after wishing me a good night, Envy stepped into the room. I almost didn't see her at first, but she did jump onto my hands while picking up my pen that I dropped. She was looking just as energized as she usually was right before she had to go to sleep.
"Okay, clearly someone is giving her an ungodly amount of caffeine!" I quietly mumbled upon noticing her. "What do you want, Envy? As if I can't already guess..." I then said to her, not wanting anything to do with Envy at the moment. She's lately been a fashion critic of my appearance, much to everyone's massive dismay (especially the fashion expertise herself), however, little did I know, this would go a whole 'nother way tonight.
It took Envy a minute to even make a comment, the whole time, I gave her an unamused look.
"Well? You gonna say something or what!?" I angrily demanded at Envy. She finally came to her senses after that comment.
"You know what... I think I'm just gonna come right out & say it! You need a makeover, badly!" Envy responded, extremely playfully, and even acting a bit like Disgust in the process. This earned her a facepalm from me.
"For the last time Envy... I'M FINE AS I AM! Now, PLEASE leave me alone, and get some goddamn sleep before I tell Sympathy that you're up WAY past bedtime, AGAIN!" I snapped at Envy, making her frown a bit.
"Oh please! Don't give me the puppy eye look, you should know by now that it don't work on me!" I said, still wanting Envy to vacate from my office. "Then how come you're up?" Envy asked me with noticeable fear & sorrow in her voice, given I did indeed yell at her a bit ago.
"'Cause I have important stuff to do! Plus, having Anxiety as my near-daily client now is more important to me than having to put up with your snarky comments on my outfit! Now I'm not gonna ask you again, GET SOME SLEEP BEFORE I TELL SYMPATHY!" I said back to Envy, however, it was a bit too late for us both. Sympathy heard the bantering, why? Neither Envy or Anxiety shut my office door on their way out & in, respectively. She was walking towards my desk while I made this statement.
"You BETTER have a good reason for being up past bedtime, AGAIN!" Sympathy yelled at Envy after swiping her from my desk into her hands. With bated breath, Envy tried to respond, but kept on stuttering, mumbling, and speaking nonsense.
I wasn't having any of this.
"sigh... I don't know who, but someone keeps on giving her MY caffeine, making her act this way, and for the millionth time this week, KEPT ON TRASH TALKING ABOUT MY HAIR & OUTFIT!" I said, noticeably getting even more pissed than I already was.
"Okay! Okay! Cupid! Deep breaths, and calm down... And you, Envy! How many times do I have to tell you!? Quit making people feel bad about their appearance! EVERYONE has made complaints about it within the last 72 hours! Why you're choosing to focus your attention on Cupid? Well, who knows. Anywho... I loved him back then for who he was, and even Disgust loves him now for who he is. Is Cupid perfect in any way, shape, or form? No! No one is! I don't know why you're expecting perfection for us all, but this ends NOW!" Sympathy responded, raising her voice with Envy as each statement passed.
"Oh come on! I was just kidding!" Envy tried to defend herself while Sympathy was carrying her back to her room.
"Yeah? Well, fashion is nothing to joke about! Imagine Disgust hearing that!" was all I could hear from Sympathy before I wrapped things up in my office, then took my newly-installed elevator up to my room for some well-needed rest.
I had to spend today keeping several emotions under control during an extremely stressful day at school for Riley, so clearly, I was really tired and wanted some sleep, which, it didn't take long for me to fall asleep when I did.
3:30 AM...
"You need a makeover, badly!"
Lucid voices of what Envy had said to me, and its variations (also from Envy) just kept playing in my mind, obviously making me feel a slight bit uneasy while trying to sleep. A few more lucid thoughts later... I jolted myself awake, as if I had a bad dream.
It took me a minute to figure out what was happening, before I made a few quick thoughts. Maybe Envy was right, even if she was "joking" about it, maybe I did need to change my look, and I just needed someone to tell me.
"Fine, Envy... if it's a makeover you want, then it's a makeover you get!" I quietly said to myself. I had a vague idea as to what I wanted to do, seeing as I had given Joy & Sadness makeovers in the past, with Disgust's help, and that time that I had to switch looks with Disgust... I now more or less had a damn near expertise level of styling myself, and others.
Now, what did I need to perfect the look? Remembering that Riley (slightly) dyed her hair at hockey camp, there now existed hair dye in HQ, with Disgust taking main possession of the dyes. No one's really used them but her, mostly for experimentation on her hair to be something other than green. But in this case, it'd be something other than maroon. I thought of what I should do for a while, before it suddenly hit me.
"What if I went golden..." I was thinking out loud (quietly, as to not wake anyone else up). I was also picturing it, golden hair, clothing, you get the idea. However, I needed to do it in a way to where I wasn't copying Joy's appearance outright.
Seeing as she had a more gold-yellow look on her, I opted for solid gold. A dye color that was accessible in HQ.
I then went to find any golden clothing around HQ, being careful not to get Sympathy's attention (although she too was drifting off at the console). There were still quite a few left over from the makeover given to Joy & Sadness, all I had to do was style them to make it fit on myself, then go from there.
I felt as if I was ready, until I realized I forgot the dye. Back to the main area I went, there was a secret safe behind one section of the mind manuals (where Sadness was just knocked out sleeping) where Disgust kept every instance of hair dye. I knew this because I was the first emotion that got to see it for myself.
It took some fiddling, but I did manage to get in, all without waking Sadness or Sympathy.
"Right! Time to find some gold dye!" I said quietly in a voice that barely went above a whisper.
15 minutes later
I was dumbfounded. I couldn't find the golden dye I've been wanting. That was before sudden realization hit me.
Disgust still had it from when she applied it herself during Riley's school dance about a week ago, where Riley also dyed her hair for said dance.
"Greeeeeeat!" I groaned. I hated disturbing Disgust in her sleep as much as the next person, but either way, I manned up and decided it was the only way I was getting that golden hair dye.
So I snuck into Disgust's room, using my phone's flashlight to help, since her room was pitch black so late at night. Thankfully, because of her ear muffs & sleep mask, she didn't even notice me at all. It also didn't take me long to find the dye.
Well, that knocked the hardest part out of the park, if I do say so myself. Now came the real fun, putting my look together!
First things first, the shirt that Disgust & I deemed too big for Joy, but could fit me extremely well, I cut the sleeves off to give my preferred sleeveless appearance, which was simple enough. Then I turned my attention to the back side, and cut holes so I could still put the shirt on properly and not risk my bow & (anti-love) arrows ripping through the material.
Then I went to design the front of the shirt to have a golden heart (since the heart is what made Cupid! Duh!) with iPod era earbuds juttering out of it. I was really starting to appreciate the look, when...
"I don't think Disgust would like this..."
I then get a better idea when that thought hit. So, back to the drawing board I went to. More specifically... the designing board. Thankfully, Anxiety's "scenario" computer was inactive whilst she was asleep, and I just so happened to know where the main system was, so, this was easy to do. Something that probably should've been mentioned earlier, but oh well. I mean, how else would I be designing the outfit?
First thing I did was remove the earbud bits, then went completely nuts! I recolored the shirt to be half maroon, half green. Then I put a halo over the golden heart.
"Ahh! Perfect!" I commented. Now I was proud of how it turned out. So I put the shirt under the design printer, and while that was happening, I then moved on to making my golden bottom-wear. I just used golden spray paint that was lying around to make then design I was eyeing.
It took about an hour, but I was able to make my design as I was picturing. I wanted the maroon parts to blend in with the gold design, so I was just able to spray paint some colors that would slowly lead into said color.
With the set designs needing to dry, there was only one thing I needed to do. Dye my hair golden.
I wasn't sure how, but I got Sympathy's attention, she came into the room all curious.
"Care to ex-" Sympathy started before noticing what I've been doing. I heard this, then went blank for a minute.
"Let's face it Sympathy, this ain't the worst thing you caught me doing." I said in total confidence & shock.
"Um... right. But what are you doing?" Sympathy asked before she took notice of my new outfit, still drying from the spray paint and still being printed, respectively.
"No, wait, don't tell me... is this because of what Envy said about you?" She then asked.
"Ding ding ding!" I then responded with some sass.
"Okay, Cupid. You know she was joking, right? We all appreciate you for the way you are. You're just beating yourself up over nothing. If I were you, I'd reconsider what you're doing, and get some sleep. I can't have Joy on my ass again because of something like this." Sympathy responded with slight arrogance.
"Thank you Sympathy, but I'm good. So what if Joy catches you again? It's not the end of the world just because I want to live my life every now & then!" I replied, with my sassiness only growing as the conversation went on.
Sympathy went blank, and looked like she wanted nothing to do with the situation, so just turned her back and said, "Suit yourself!"
So, with that, I began preparations to dye my whole hair golden, when I heard someone come in.
"Oh, Sympathy, WHAT NOW!?" I asked, facepalming, only to realize, I garnered Disgust's attention, somehow. My face went pale seeing her there.
"Cupid, honey? What are you doing here in my parlor?" Disgust asked me almost instantly. Clearly I didn't have any good explanation for this.
"Why don't you ask Envy why I'm changing my look." was all I could come up with. The sheer annoyance from Disgust's face was so damn noticeable, just even hearing Envy's name made her shudder.
"Ugh! Her again!? When is she going to learn that I run the fashion game, NOT the other way around!?" she answered so distastefully. But then, she began to take a look at what I've been doing for the past hour and a half.
"Ah, I see you found my golden hair dye and spray paint." Disgust muttered to me before I shut the door to prevent Sympathy from catching us in here.
"You know... I've a better question, what are you doing up?" I asked Disgust. I didn't think she got insomnia again, so ruled that out.
"Eh... just had one of those nights again... that puberty alarm really screwed me up badly..." Disgust then said while still looking over what I did.
I went silent so as to not disturb her. A minute later, she turned to me with a look of approval.
"Not bad, Cupid! I'm really loving your shirt design, which indeed, means a match made in heaven! Question though... why gold? Isn't that Joy's color already?" Disgust responded to my new clothing that I designed.
"Well, you'd be right on that, but her appearance is more yellow, rather than gold. Also wanted to try something new, I can't stay maroon forever... though I technically have to. Speaking of which, want to do me a favor and... dye my hair?" I answered back, pointing out the main reason I even went through with this operation to begin with. I saw Disgust's eyes gleam with joy when I asked her to dye my hair, she's only ever been able to do this once or twice, notably, when her & I had to swap appearances for a day (after being granted permission by Aura to do the makeovers ourselves).
"Thought you'd never ask! Well then, to the station you go!" Disgust immediately answered back, beginning to act like a beauty shop parlor in the process, understandingly.
All there was to do now, was let Disgust work her magic!
2 and a half hours later...
"Just a little touch up here... and we... are... done!" Disgust proudly exclaimed after finishing my hair dye, yes the whole process took longer than anticipated, mostly because the water that she used for dying someone's hair wasn't warm to her liking on several different occasions. Even after several attempts to get warm enough water to where it wasn't too hot, she became proud of what she was doing.
"Ready to see your new hair look?" Disgust asked me. And with a simple nod, she sat me up in my chair (the type found at a barber shop or a salon) I was in, and held the mirror up to about eye level with the mirror in-front of me.
I was psyched! The gold looked EXCELLENT on me, to say the least!
"What was I missing out on!? This is awesome!" I exclaimed. Disgust then applauded herself on how the look turned out, and even made comments about truly outdoing herself. Disgust was basically an unstoppable force of nature in this sense!
However, I still needed to turn my attention to the outfit. After Disgust sat me down nearest the exit of the parlor that led back to the main area of HQ for the dye to settle in, I had Disgust check up on my outfit.
The good news? Everything dried up and was etched in to the articles of clothing whilst I was getting my hair dyed gold.
It was time! Or... so I thought.
"Alright, Dis! Hand 'em over!" I eagerly said to her, really wanting to try my final outfit on for the first time.
Thing is, this wouldn't happen for over an hour due to the dye needing to settle in to the hair & the crevasses, I apparently didn't know this, and had to be reminded about it. To pass the time, her & I chatted about some of the latest gossips that was going on in not only HQ or Mind World, but with Riley and her set of friends as well, especially Val, in which Disgust was dead set on gossiping about for a long while, though, thanks to Anxiety, we didn't get to see any of that happening directly.
When Disgust felt as if enough time passed, she ran her fingers through my hair to see if it dried up yet. And, at last, it was. I was still very impatient to try on the outfit, but first, I needed to change my footwear. I just went with a pair from the lead vocalist from my favorite band to listen to, Queen. It looked great on me, even Disgust agreed on this.
And after this... I finally went to go change in my outfit.
Needless to say, I was proud of how my work turned out, so out I went to show Disgust my final appearance. Her jaws dropped in pure & genuine awe!
"Oh! My! God! Cupid, if I haven't said it at all, you look cute in that outfit!" Disgust was fan-girling at this point, I didn't blame her one bit. She snapped a couple of photos in this look, and as soon as she began to print them out, Mind World turned from night to day, Riley had officially awaken for the day. Given as I didn't believe this, I had a look at the time.
7:15 AM
"Well, that was fun..." I said while making my way to get some nice, hot coffee. Everyone else began to wake up around this time. And the first person to see my new look? To no one's surprise, Envy.
"Well, pipsqueak, you happy now?" I asked her with arrogance. I'm pretty sure that made Envy upset with me.
A pet peeve of Envy's is getting called pipsqueak, however, I only call her that if deemed necessary, this whole endeavor I felt warranted it, I'd later learn tho, that she was indeed shocked that I actually took her advice, quite literally. I internally laughed that off while filling my coffee cup.
While enjoying my coffee, Aura came in to get his cup of the sweet stuff, then soon after noticed my look. Aura was left speechless, needless to say. He genuinely wouldn't have thought that I'd do such a thing to myself.
"Oh what, Aura, don't appreciate my new style?" I taunted at him. All Aura could feel was pure embarrassment & jealousy, was his multi-colored aurora not good enough in his eyes after seeing this?
"Nothing? Alright! You do you I guess." I finished after waiting for a response from him for over a minute.
Getting ready to help Anxiety run the console with as few freak-outs as possible, with my coffee in hand, everyone who didn't see my new look stopped & stared the second they could.
"Ok, um... wasn't expecting all golden from you..." Shyness responded to my new look. Otherwise, Disgust was really the only one that could comment on this, I mean, she did my hair for crying out loud!
Envy still had a look of guilt on her face, she knew she was joking around, but the fact that I actually went through with it, was the last thing she expected.
A few others made similar comments to Shyness, some confused, some positive. That was before Disgust came rushing over to me with what looked like an advert on her phone.
"Whoa!!! Slow down a minute, lemme have a look!!!" I insisted, before looking at whatever was on her phone.
This "advert" turned out to be a fashion show that was happening on Fashion Island within the next week. My eyes widened in surprise & joy. I've secretly been wanting to visit Fashion Island for quite some time now, this would be my chance!
"Disgust!!! That's... that's incredible! And... if truth be told, I kind of wanted to visit Fashion Island for a while now... this might just be my reason to finally go! I can just picture this getaway now..." I started. However, Disgust cut me off, to break news I wasn't expecting to hear.
"Cupid... what if I told you that I took care of that already???" She responded. Behind my back, she had put down the both of us to be entered in the fashion show, booked a pent-house hotel room, and everything in between.
When she told me everything that she did, everyone, and I mean everyone, became either jealous, excited, or nervous, no in-betweens. None more so than Sympathy, who begged to be dragged along, much to Disgust's dismay.
I about wanted to faint hearing that. I was finally going to Fashion Island after fantasizing about it for 3 months!!!
"NO WAY!!!!! DISGUST!!!! I'm at my happiest right now!!!" I screamed in excitement. But there was one more thing that she didn't say.
The train of thought from Headquarters to Fashion Island was leaving in 2 hours from now. And that... made me even more excited than ever!
At least 2 weeks away from Headquarters with my girlfriend... the luxury... the fashion... the elegancy... it was all too much for me to handle!
However, if I was to be in the show, strutting down the runway... my look would have to be changed, again. And on the next bit of the surprise vacation, she also got us styling appointments at the best parlor in Fashion Island.
Everyone else couldn't handle it, and some of them even tried begging on their knees to go with Disgust & I.
"GUYS!!! I understand how excited you guys are that Disgust & I are going to Fashion Island for at least 2 weeks... but, given that Riley needs all of you more than she needs the both of us at the moment... not to mention I found her a crush a while back, and the relationship seems to be going well... and the fact we deeply love each other... sadly we don't have room for a third person... but... I'll promise to bring you guys something when we come back, you know... as a souvenir of sorts. Anyway, while I'm gone, Aura, you're taking over as the Headquarters therapist! Information will be on my desk before I leave, and..." I said, with me getting cut off at the replacements while I was gone.
"Don't worry about it, Cupid. We'll be fine. I promise! In fact, I can be the therapist if you want." Sympathy replied back, I hesitated at first, but eventually agreed and let her take over as therapist on my behalf.
"Well, hope you both have a fun time." Joy told the both of us after that debacle, then faced my direction, specifically.
"And Cupid, don't worry about a thing, I'll make sure things around here are A-OK, trust me." Joy said to me. Yes, I had trust issues with her, but I finally decided to give in this time.
"Alright Joy. Plus, you're pretty good at keeping everyone at bay up here. I trust you'll keep HQ as it is without Disgust or myself." I said back to Joy, and as everyone separated paths to get Riley ready for school that day, Disgust & I began to get ready for Fashion Island.
This would be the start of something incredible, and magical, I might add!
And that about wraps it up for Part 1 of Fashion Couple!
If you guys have chapter ideas, feel free to leave requests via the reviews, or my inbox. I'd love to hear what I should write about in my biggest project yet. Best part is, we're only getting started!
Regarding my other works, I know I'm procrastinating on Never Pick A Fight With An Expert!... truth is, I'm drawing a blank on how to go about the third part. I might have JBlaser (or one of you) to help me out with that.
Anyway. That's enough rambling for now, don't wanna keep y'all here for too much longer. lol.
Have a great day/night!